The Last Chronicle
by Miss Starfire
Summary: After years of struggling to build their lives together, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have lost everything. But as all-out war looms, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance, Tony and Pepper are ready to take it all back. It has all come down to this. Story 8 of 8. The epic finale to The Last Chronicles Saga.
1. Prologue

**Guest Review Responses**

**Someone: I've been crying for literaly 20 mins... still am... OMG I'M STILL CRYING! I literally don't remember the last time I cried for this long! You are the BEST BEST BESTEST AUTHOR EVER! I don't read THAT much... but you are still... just... oh my god... I can't describe it... your stories are so FREAKING AWESOME and I don't know how you can do this at all... like seriously, you must have some mental issues O_o ... Anyway... you almost killed me at the end of this... I was laughing and crying at the same time, thought I was going mad... but isn't that the normal symptoms of reading your stories?! I KNEW HOWIE WAS ALIVE! I JUST NEW IT! And I also guessed that Fury was a good guy at the beginning of this epilogue... I don't think I can wait that long for the next story :( IT'S GONNA END SOON :'( Oh gosh... I've started crying again... I'm not actually an emotional person, just this story and the way you wrote it, completely threw me... I dunno what else to say now, I feel like this review should be as long as your chapters (which is long!) - telling you that from the beginning I still can't believe how you can write so freaking perfectly... and the way you fix things by unfixing them even more, and then fixing them... and also the way everything ties up together and not a single thing is left out and I'm sounding REALLY stupid and weird now lol... anyway... I'm gonna miss you and your stories :( but hey... at least you didn't end on a cliffhanger, well, it kinda was - not for me though cuz I guessed... so goodbyes and I hope you have an AWESOME holiday D xx** – You can all thank Someone for me staying up late and trying to work on two stories at the same time while real life and work kick my butt. _This_… this review and everything that is described here is the reason why I write, and I can only hope that every single one of you feels the same way. If you do, you're welcome! And if you don't… challenge accepted ;) Thank you sooooooooo much, Someone! Your review made _ME_ tear up :D

**muah: I am shocked beyond words. You always have these crazy unpredictable ideas! So relieved to know that Pepper, Tony AND Howie are aliiivvee! Looking forward to the next installment! **– Here's a brief intro to it! Be warned though: being alive is the easiest part of what's to come ;)

**apps: I am happy now... all three are alive... yayyy... all cheers to you miss Starfire... looking forward to Christmas present!... happy Christmas... Enjoyyyy** –A little bit late on the Christmas present, but here is a glimpse of what's to come. Epic does not begin to describe the conclusion of this saga!

**Pepper210: Hola, soy nueva en esta paagina y devo decir que de todas las hisrorias que lei, tus cronicas le ganaron por mucho. Es la mejor saga que lei en mi vida. HAAAAAA! espero que actulizes pronto ya no aguanto las ganas de saber que pasaran (por sierto bueno uso de la tecnica de "si estas muerto no pueden matarte" en la histori, mucho escandalo pero estubo buen). ****Sos mi idola actualiza pronto... besos **– ¡Bienvenida! Here is your starter pack for reading these stories, en especial esta historia final: twenty boxes of tissues, ten brown paper bags, three oxygen tanks, two automatic defibrillators, and five punching bags. ¡Espero que esta historia tambien te guste! ¡Saludos!

**Summary: **After years of struggling to build their lives together, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have lost everything. But as all-out war looms, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance, Tony and Pepper are ready to take it all back. It has all come down to this. Story 8 of 8. The epic finale to The Last Chronicles Saga.

**Standard disclaimer for all my stories: **My stories are graphic, angsty, frustrating, filled with cliffhangers, drama and foul language. Read at your own risk – medical issues and subsequent bills are not covered by yours truly ;) If you don't like, please don't read. I appreciate reviews and constructive feedback but if you cannot stand the plot, save yourself and me some time and walk away. You don't have to love all IMAA stories :) I don't own IMAA. My stories are better viewed by using the "half screen" option of FFNET.

**THIS IS A SEQUEL TO THE FIFTH YEAR. **Start with _The Last Month_, then _The Last Summer_, then _The First Year_, _The Second Year_, _The Third Year_, _The Fourth Year_ and then _The Fifth Year_.

**READ THOSE FIRST OR BE FOREVER CONFUSED!**

**A/N: **Forgot to post this in C8 of the last story. A link to the song that Tony plays for Pepper while on the island can be found on my profile. The song is "Please Forgive Me" by Bryan Adams. You may want to re-read that section while listening to the song… but only if you want to smile and cry at the same time.

Welcome back, my Faithful Readers!

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**The Last Chronicle**

**Prologue**

Twenty-four hours.

This was how long Tony Stark and Pepper Potts-Stark had given him to organize himself; to relay to them everything that had occurred for the past five years.

Twenty-four hours. This was their non-negotiable deadline to him.

Nick Fury sighed loudly and rubbed his face with his palms. He should have seen it coming – this was his fucking job: to predict what could or would occur and prepare in advanced for it. But if this mission had proven anything to him, it was that with the young Stark couple, nothing was ever easy. Nothing was ever predictable. Nothing was ever black or white.

Tony Stark and his wife marched to the beat of their own drums. And no one but them understood the notes of their tune.

He removed his hands from his face and stretched his arms forward above his desk. His eye then darted to the multiple clocks on the front wall of his office, all displaying the current date and time of different time zones. Why he had asked for these clocks from the original inhabitants of the location S.H.I.E.L.D. had relocated to, was now beyond him. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, however, it dawned on him that the destruction of humanity as everyone knew it was not contingent upon a certain time or day – not even to a celebrated holiday. The end of everything and everyone would come when _he_ – the man that had marked the young inventor as his prey – wanted it to be.

Nick Fury chuckled bitterly at the irony of it. The inventor and his enemy: so different from each other, and yet both created and used their _drums_ as they saw fit. Their resources and brightness were abundant, nearly equal at this point, yet their goals and mission in life were complete opposites of each other. Tony wanted to save the world. His enemy wanted to end it.

The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. groaned when he realized he had wasted hours pondering about the events of the day before. He had but a few hours before the sun rose – or before the morning alarms in the building went off – and Tony and Pepper would be at his doorstep, demanding the answers they wanted of him. Twenty-four hours was not enough time, especially if he only had an hour to convince them to stay below ground.

_Those damned kids_, Fury thought as he remembered what had occurred after he had relayed to the couple that their son was alive. He had hoped that this revelation would have gained their immediate cooperation, but the odds had not been in his favor. He actually could not blame them; he had betrayed their trust too many times thus far.

_Nick Fury stared at the inventor and then at the redhead, and then his smug face turned somber._

"_I didn't change my mind. This was always the plan. It had to happen this way, because the world is going to hell very soon, Tony, and we need your help. Everyone does. And also because…" _

_Nick paused to give Pepper an apologetic look, stared at the floor beneath him for a second, and then finally looked up to face the woman's forthcoming wrath. _

"_Your son is alive."_

_The silence that followed his statement was long and heavy, broken only after Pepper shook her head vehemently and glared at the older man._

"_You… you're lying. You're fucking lying to us!"_

"_Whoa, there! Calm down. I'm not lying," Nick raised his hands again in an attempt to somehow calm the infuriated redhead. "I… it's a long story. But he__** is**__ alive."_

"_Tony," Pepper barely whispered, pressed her forehead against his back, and then let her husband take over the conversation while she visibly held back sobs. Nick Fury inwardly flinched. He knew the least effective way to get through to them was by setting Tony in Pepper-defense mode. He had just caused the one thing he had wanted to avoid in the first place._

"_Stark, listen to me."_

"_No," Tony snarled. "YOU," he pointed his right index finger towards Fury and then his thumb towards his chest, "Listen to me. I don't know what you want from us, but you aren't gonna get it. I don't know why you kept us alive or why you had Extremis come back online in me…"_

_Pepper's head snapped up at the inventor's last words, worry evident in her face. "What?" she placed her hands on his shoulders. "Tony… did you just… are you sure?"_

"_Yes," Nick said. "I had my people partially reawaken his Extremis."_

"_Partially?" Pepper asked in a tone Nick Fury did not like. "You're telling me you thought it was OK to blow up our jet, acceptable to pretend that we're dead to the world, funny to lie about my son, AND appropriate to turn back on the one thing that was killing Tony for months? Do you have a FUCKING DEATH WISH?!"_

"_I think he does," Tony said and then took a step toward Fury, fists ready and anger pouring out of him. Seeing this, Fury snapped his fingers once, but it was not until the redhead commanded the genius to stop his trek that Tony realized what Fury had just done. His eyes traveled down his form and then back to Pepper, only to see on her what was on him: red dots all over her body, mostly aimed at their heads._

"_What the FUCK, Fury?" Tony screamed. "Do you WANT me to kill you?"_

"_Not if I kill you first," Fury replied. "Or maybe Miss Potts. Your choice, Tony."_

"_He's bluffing," Pepper snapped, anger dripping out of her words even though tears were yet to leave her eyes. "He's not going to touch us, Tony."_

"_Are you sure about that?" Nick challenged, hoping that his techniques worked on the couple as well as they had worked on their relatives, two weeks ago._

"_Absolutely," Pepper answered and took a step closer to where Nick stood, the red dots of the dozens of snipers concealed in the hidden room above them, following her moves. "I don't know what you want us for, but you know damned fucking well that if you hurt either of us, you aren't getting shit out of us."_

"_You underestimate my resources, Potts."_

"_And you overestimate your options," Pepper began. "If what you're saying is true… if… if you did fake our deaths to help you save the world, then you need us both… ALIVE," she pointed towards her husband. "And I know that Tony is way smarter and more valuable to you than I am… but I also know that if you hurt me, he won't do anything for you. And you know that, too. And you also know that if you hurt him, I won't help you either."_

_Nick narrowed his eye at her. "You forget I have the best people in torturing techniques."_

"_Try me," Pepper glared back at him. "You have no idea what I've been tortured with."_

"_Actually, I do," Nick crossed his arms over his chest. "And I also know that Tony hasn't been through what you've been through. Do you think he can handle it, Potts? The electric shocks, the water dunking… the snake venom? Are you willing to put him through what you barely survived yourself?"_

"_You may have limited the range of Extremis' computer detection," Tony interjected when Pepper took longer to respond and had begun breathing hard in response to Fury's threat on his life. "But I'm still stronger and faster than you. You want to test it out, huh, Fury? Which arm do you want me to break first?"_

"_The left one," Pepper suggested in an unnerving tone, eyes focused on the general's arm in question. "It's dying, anyway," the redhead continued, head tilted to the left and her eyes slowly moving up and down Fury's body, as if she could see every part of his innards. "Or maybe we'll just wait for the darkness to finish taking over your head."_

"_Darkness?" Tony asked as he stared back and forth between his redhead and the clearly shaken Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Pepper… what-what do you mean?"_

"_I can see the darkness, Fury," Pepper said in an eerily calm voice and with a sadistic smile on her face that Nick Fury had only once seen on her: when she had threatened to kill Mitch Richards after he had verbally attacked Tony Stark and her son. "And it's almost done with you."_

_Nick swallowed hard, beads of sweat suddenly forming on his forehead. His sources had been on spot about Pepper Potts, and if their warnings were also correct, he knew to back down from the argument RIGHT now. He made a waving gesture with his index and middle fingers on his left hand. A second later, the red dots disappeared from the two heroes he had worked so hard to keep alive._

"_Give…" he cleared his throat. "Give me a few days. I'll get everything ready and I'll explain everything to you."_

"_No," Tony said and walked over to Pepper. The moment his left hand laced with hers, the redhead blinked several times, as if coming out of a trance, shook her head lightly and the sparkle returned to her eyes. "You tell us right now," Tony insisted._

"_I can't. I need more time."_

"_What for?" Pepper asked in her normal tone of voice. "I thought you were in a hurry to save everyone."_

"_I am," Nick assented with his head. "But to get you ready… up to speed, it's gonna take some time."_

"_You have one day," Tony said, lifting a single finger on his right hand. "Twenty-four hours to get your shit ready, and then one hour to sell us on it. If you don't convince us in an hour by telling us the truth, you can kiss your plans and our help goodbye."_

"_And, if I don't agree to this ridiculous timetable?" Nick inquired. "Then, what?"_

"_Then I'll use whatever we have available to completely turn on Extremis in Tony," Pepper replied. "And he'll make sure to burn down your fucking ship, or whatever this is, to the ground."_

"_With __**you**__ in it?"_

"_We're already dead, aren't we?" Tony stated, his tone and posture showing he was more than in agreement with his wife's plan. "And from what you've told us, everything, everywhere is about to completely go to shit. So, maybe we'll just take the express exit; decide our own fates, on our own terms. We've got nothing to lose."_

"_And we're already underground," Nick indicated. "You can't bring anything down lower than where we already are."_

"_Good," the ginger replied almost immediately, released Tony's hand, walked up to the General, and stood inches from his face. "That only means no one will hear you scream when we burn you alive."_

Burn him alive. The _darkness_. Her tone of voice. He was lucky he was still alive after facing them both, and that had been without them knowing fully what they could do. He knew now, more than ever, that the duo had grown closer and stronger in the past few years. And he also knew that he was yet to see what more they could do when properly motivated and trained. Bringing their son back in one piece was going to be motivator Number 1. Saving the world was going to be influence Number 2. Having a say in how they would go about it all, was going to be the third stimulus on the list.

He could only hope these would be enough for them.

"Director Fury," Maria Hill said from the door. By the shocked look on her senior, she knew he had been lost in thought again. "I have the agenda for today. Everyone's ready to carry out our plea to the Starks."

"Everyone?" Fury asked while he grabbed from Maria the paper she had brought with her. "Even our more recent guests?"

"_Especially_ our more recent guests. Mister and Missus Stark's display yesterday morning was quite the incentive for them. For all of us, I think."

"No shit, Hill," Fury agreed. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eye."

"I don't think any of us would've. Mrs. Stark… Pepper… this is… it's so unfair to her."

"But that's life," Fury stood up from his chair and walked towards the door, already dreading what he would have to do in about an hour or so. "And it's time she finds out what she was made for."

"And Tony?" Maria asked. "What about him?"

"He…" Fury sighed. "He won't be coming back."

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**A/N:** I'll just say it myself: I suck and you have every right to kill me right now. But the story is super good. I promise :)


	2. Chapter 1

**Guest Review Responses**

**Guest: have no idea how long i've been checking in here to see update soon. **– Well, check no more: a huge update here for you :D

**faithful reader: i have a million things to say but after reading all books in this series and finally catching up i have one thing i need to say i wish i had read this earlier the books are amazing and butiful and even gave me my name they have made me mad cry happy sad but being the faithful reader i have learned to always be faithful and never give up on you and i have waited in agony for this story but while i was waiting i read all your imaa storys and they were lovely butiful and undescribable so to end it here never stop writing and keep making people mad happy sad and cry.** – Holy moly! Like, oh, my God! I am SO honored that you have such faith in me, and I can assure you that you won't be disappointed. You may get a heart attack here and there while reading this fic, but like I've done and said before: I will fix it. And jeez! 'Faithful Reader'? You sure know how to make me nervous! :P I will do my best to make you happy and glad that you invested so much time in these stories ^_^

**Someone: Ok 1st: Yay that was quick :) And your welcome! And 2nd:**

**Gaaaaaaaaah, I'm really trying hard not to attack you with an angry review right now. Ugh there are so many questions that need answering! D: Update as soon as you can! (Ahem...please..._)** – Please, don't attack me! Or at least not with Brussel sprouts or rabid pit bulls. I'm still recovering from that ;)

**Pepper210: Ese maldito de Furia, me tiene cansada... ****Hug... si pudiera lo aria pedasos! Otro gran capitulo, no se como le hases... son geniales tus historias. Te adoro, actuliza pronto porfa... la intriga me esta matando! – **Nick Fury es un patán de primera, pero es tan divertido hacerlo enojar y hacer corajes. LOL! Muchas gracias por tu review, y bienvenida al club :D

**apps: Heyy..how are you?... Missed you dear!...I want to trust you with this story but still saying I will cry a lot if anything happened to pepperony as it has been marked with angst and tragedy,not with any romance...breaking my heart.. Why?** –Errr… so, you noticed that the story is marked tragedy, huh? Yeah… there will be some deaths in this story… yes: DEATHS :(

**Toni: 'What she's made for.' WHAT?! What is Pepper made for? Who MADE her and why? Fury better have some convincing evidence. Looking forward to reading what those are and to finally, FINALLY getting some answers. Thanks! – **You will get some answers here, but the bulk of the answers you're searching for will be posted in the next chappie :D

**apps: Heyyy...where are you?..long time no see! **– I'm here! Sorry! Life sucks and I was trying to finish another fic for _Arrow_. But here I am now!

**Pepper210: Dios la intriga me esta matando. Estoy releyendo los libros (Voy por el Cuarto año) y me quede pensando en quien es ese enemigo oculto en el atico de Satrk Solutions... Mi unica teoria... hasta haora ...es que posiblemente sea ese virus Tecnivoro, porque en teoria nunca fue destruido, una partecita de el se quedo con Jarcof y talves logro evolucionar y convertirse en una persona y al mismo tiempo en un aparato tecnologico inofencivo. Y claro todo el mundo sabe que Tony se la vive rodeado de tecnologia... haci que es muy probable... no se tu, pero me estoy quemando el cerebro pensando. Maldicion! actualiza pronto porfaaaaaa... la intriga me come viva, tengo que saber quien es ese maltido (O maldita, eso depende) para que trate de hacerlo picadillo con mis propias manos... Nadie se mete con mi pareja favorita si tengo algo que decir al respecto... -_- (Amante enferma del Peperony... jusgenmen si quieren, asi soy yo :D) – ¡**JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA! ¡Ya somos dos! Tus teorías son buenas… y de hecho, una de las que mencionas aquí es la base de la otra historia que estoy preparando para cuando termine estas crónicas. Espero verte ahí también :) ¡Ah! Y en este capítulo por fin sabrás, ¿quién es el maldito que buscas? :P

**Iron kid: Plz update this I can not I really want to see me becausei want see if they get James back – **Hello, _Iron kid_! Welcome to the club :) I think _Elinorwrites _and you would be best buddies: she adores James, too. And who wouldn't? He's such a loveable little boy!

**Guest: Please update! This story is amazing and I must know how it ends. – **Here it be! The first chapter of the crazy conclusion of The Last Chronicles Saga ^_^

**A/N:** This story will revert to the timeframe of _The Last Month_, meaning that it won't follow the same pattern as its predecessors: each chapter won't be a month, but a period of time that could be minutes, hours, days, or even weeks. There's LOTS to cover, and I'll try to do it as thoroughly as humanly possible.

I'm sooooooooooooooooo sorry about the delay in getting this chapter out. My _Arrow_ fic and life in general delayed me in completing it. But now, we are full speed ahead! Get ready for your heads to explode, my Faithful Readers! Lot of answers for you here in this chapter! I HOPE YOU LOVE IT!

_***DRUMROLL***_

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**Chapter 1**

After so many months without using Extremis to his heart's content, it was odd to be woken up before the alarm went off, by the alarm's internal computer system itself, nonetheless. He could feel the alarm clock somehow beeping within him, precisely counting down to six in the morning, as if tempting him to oversleep and call itself the victor. But if there was something that Tony Stark knew first hand, it was the value of time.

And the value of second chances, at that.

He had wanted to wake up before the alarm went off, anyway, to have some time to think about what would happen if Fury failed to convince him and Pepper to join him in whatever clusterfuck the Head of S.H.I.E.L.D. had put himself into. Knowing Fury, he had probably caused half of the issue by trying to prevent it. Tony could not deny that he himself had some experience in that regard. But it was one thing to clean up after you own mess, and quite another to clean up after someone else's – especially _someone else_ whom he would not trust with a bucket of water near a lake.

How_ could_ he trust him, anyway? Ever since Iron Man had come to life, Fury had been breathing down his neck trying to outsmart him, find out who he was, feel as if he could control what Tony did with his armor. The only time he had enjoyed working with the man had been when the Makluan had invaded. At this point, Tony figured that it was because neither of them had had any choice in the matter. He had even respected Rescue for the rookie she was during the invasion. If Fury had seen how well the redhead had fared inside a brand-new suit of armor against the lizards aboard the alien ship, he would have more quickly believed the ginger to be a worthy ally in this absurd, super-secret cause of his – whatever it may be.

His eyes wandered to his chest, where Pepper still rested, her arms around his sides, her legs tangled with his. He ran a hand down her soft mane. It had grown again, he now realized, which made him wonder how long it had been since Gene had blown up the jet with them inside. Had it been a few days, a couple of weeks… or was it much longer than that? Granted, Pepper's hair was not as long as she used to have it before grief made her hurt enough to cut it herself, but it was definitely longer than it had been in high school. In fact, it had somewhat lost the style she had acquired when he had sent Matilda to her, months ago. He should have realized that yesterday, when they showered, but he had been more concerned about making sure every other part of her body was in good shape.

His gaze then shifted to the space she had left on her side of the bed, and he held back a chuckle at remembering what he had done yesterday when Nick Fury had shown them to their _living quarters_.

_"Alarms go off for everyone at six in the morning," Fury told the couple that trailed behind him, following him to where he had told them everyone else rested for the night. He had been very vague about how he meant by "everyone else," but right now all they wanted was to wash off, talk about what they had gotten themselves into, and sleep the day away. There was no replacement for a real restful night – not even the coma-induced slumber that Tony suspected had been forced upon them._

_ "Breakfast is served at seven. Do you want the briefing to be before or after?"_

_ "Don't care," Tony said and stopped when Fury did so in front of a metal door. "It depends if you want me to kick your ass before or after you can have your last meal."_

_ Fury's only response was to sigh. "Whatever, Stark. Here's Miss Potts' room. The code is–"_

_ "Whoa!" Tony shook his head. "Did you just say: __**Pepper's**__ room? Don't you mean __**our**__ room?"_

_ "No," Fury replied and pressed in a code on the keypad to the left of the door, causing the automatic door to open up and reveal a single twin-sized bed inside. "This building was not intended for it to be a couples' retreat spa, Stark. It was built for soldiers."_

_ "Soldiers with no wives?" Tony asked._

_ "Yeah. Exactly," Fury retorted in a bored tone. "Now, why don't we let Miss Potts do her own thing here and I'll take you to the other floor where you can–"_

_ "Other floor?" Tony chuckled mockingly. "You seriously think I'm going to let Pepper out of my sight? And you want us to help you?"_

_ "Tony, these rooms are small, built only for one person and only have one bed. What are you gonna do? Sleep sideways on the floor between the bed and the wall? There's only 200 square feet in there! And 50 of those are for the bathroom!"_

_ "He can sleep on me," Pepper said with a smirk and a wink that showed she was purposely trying to make the situation both uncomfortable and even more difficult for the General. "Wouldn't be the first time."_

_ Nick closed his eye, exhaled deeply, and then opened it up once more. "There are no other empty rooms nearby. So, if you just get over yourself and follow me upstairs…"_

_ Fury began, turned around to walk away, but Tony had other plans. The narrowing of his eyes told the ginger he was pushing the limits of whatever capped version of Extremis he still had inside, and when a smile crept up to his face, Pepper held back a chuckle at what unfolded before her. Without saying a word, Tony walked around Fury, hacked opened the next door, and then walked inside. Fifteen seconds later, the inventor dragged out of the unused room the bed that was inside, hauled it with him to the room that had been deemed for Pepper's use, and then threw the second twin-size bed next to the original one, all the while grateful for his returned superhuman strength. It was a cramped space for sure, but Pepper just shrugged coolly to Fury's questioning look as she walked past him to stand inside their new room._

_ Tony spared his redhead a glance, his back still to Fury. He then winked playfully at her before he made sure the door closed in Fury's face without even looking back. The door instantly locked itself, and he removed the override code he knew S.H.I.E.L.D. had programmed inside. Now only he and Pepper would be able to open that door… unless Fury decided to blow the whole fucking thing up._

"Guess we would've been able to manage with the one bed," he whispered to himself and then kissed the top of Pepper's head. He slowly rolled her over and away from him, and decided to bathe one more time before meeting Fury even though they had done a thorough cleaning last night. Cold water helped him focus and think, and he had much to ponder about right now.

Just like whether or not to believe that their son was alive.

He stripped down on his way to the shower, and he did not even bother to turn on the light. He stood under the cold stream of water, closed his eyes and weighed in pros and cons. He knew by personal experience that it was not unheard of to come back from the dead, even after a long time had passed. He himself had been found a week after the plane crash of the Stark International private jet. His father had been found more than a year after that. Besides, if anyone was crazy and proficient enough at faking someone's death, it surely would be S.H.I.E.L.D. in tandem with Gene Khan. Tony was not aware of what the situation was outside wherever they were right now, but it must have taken a lot to convince their families and friends that they were really gone.

Had there been a funeral for them? Were they still mourning them? Would they ever see their families again?

Could their son still be alive?

_Back to square one._

If baby James was still alive, and if they were still remotely close to the day their plane had exploded, he was nearly a year and a half of age. If their son was in fact still breathing, he had been without his parents for at least eight months, which was enough time for one so young to forget about them. And it was also enough time to exploit him into the weapon he knew his son could be.

James Howard Stark had some variation of Extremis in him, of that Tony no longer had any doubt. His son was stronger than other infants – and most other adults – at seemingly random times, which he had seen with his very own eyes. He had also seemed to understand certain things with much more clarity than any child his age should have been able to, suggesting that he had a natural level of intelligence that would at least rival his father's, and likely even surpass it one day. And there was something else in him; the ability to see beyond what anyone else could see… the ability to read people's… people's…

_Darkness_, Tony's eyes snapped open and he aimed his gaze at the closed door that led to the bedroom. He swallowed hard, shook his head lightly, and then exhaled deeply and slowly, as if forcing his mind not to rush to conclusions about his wife. Yet, he found that he could not.

What if whatever James had had, it had been given to Pepper too? What if S.H.I.E.L.D. was lying to them again and they were simply testing out their version of Extremis on his wife? On him? On their son? What if they were nothing but lab rats in the grand scheme of things? The goal of Extremis had been to revive the admirable, yet fallen soldier of many decades ago. So far, however, none of the attempts at bringing back Captain America had been fruitful at all. It was only reasonable, in scientific terms, to explore all variations of the small dosage of Extremis he had successfully transferred to himself, all those years ago.

So… was it possible that their son was still alive, in the name of science? 100%. Was it possible that he was here, at this same facility, but just on another floor? Yes. Completely plausible in his eyes.

Would Nick Fury bargain the execution of his plans and the inventor's full and unquestioned cooperation in them, for the cost of James' freedom and life?

_Yup_, Tony thought bitterly. _The fucking bastard would do that, too!_

Yet, if this were the case, why had Fury not just saved himself some time by showing them their son and then demand whatever he wanted from him, yesterday morning or even last night? Why was he holding back? Perhaps it was because their son was not truly here, or maybe he was here but was not in any condition to be seen. Or maybe it was just because holding their son for ransom was the highest card he could play in this screwed up game of life.

Tony closed his eyes once more.

The shower stall he was currently in was all too small, yet yesterday he and his wife had managed to somehow fit inside it at the same time. Their preferred _shower activity_ had taken a backseat, however, and not because of the lack of space – he knew they would have made it work – but because their minds had been busy both at taking care of each other and at accepting as truth that they had once more defied all odds.

_Her hands were practically everywhere on him, as his had been on her when it had been his turn to check every pore on her body. So far, the only marks they had found belonged to previous adventures, or misfortunes, and nothing out of the ordinary seemed to stand out to them. Yet, they both knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. would have not passed on the opportunity to run tests on them that they would have never agreed to be a subject of had they been awake all this time._

_ Once she was satisfied with her examination, his redhead looked up to stare at his eyes for an instant, and she then pressed herself against him, her hands surrounding his waist. The steam building around them made their skin more slippery than it would normally have been, and it was slightly uncomfortable for the inventor as well, but he was just so happy to have her with him again that he had not even argued with her when she had cranked up the hot water in the stall._

_ "Are we dreaming, Tony?" he heard her ask in a timid voice he had not heard from her in a long, long time. "Are we going to wake up now?"_

_ He surrounded her back with his arms, rested his chin on her head, and then closed his eyes. _

"_No, Pepper. I don't think it's like that."_

_ "I don't know what to believe anymore," she gulped. "I'm so confused… and scared… and I don't want to get my hopes up…"_

_ She did not have to explain her words; he knew exactly what she meant, because he was feeling the same… and more. Fury had said their son was alive, but both parents remembered the feeling of the little boy's cold figure in their arms. Tony still remembered having to sedate Pepper to take the dead body from her iron grip. He still remembered the funeral and the burial of his son, as if it had all occurred just seconds ago._

_ "What are we going to do?" she asked after she pulled away from him, but only a few inches, and only to rest her forehead on his._

_ "Listen to the prick," he whispered now that she was even closer to him. "See what he has to say and then act."_

_ "Act, how? Are we going to work with him… or are we going to put a bullet in his head?"_

_ "We have no guns, Pepper."_

_ "We don't need them. We'll manage. I just… I just don't have the strength to be played with again. I just… I don't…"_

_ Once again, the redhead did not have to finish voicing her thoughts – similar ones were crossing his mind as well. All this time, they had thought that their lives were theirs and theirs alone. But the more they thought about what they had survived, and what had occurred to them in the past five years, the more they realized that perhaps their life choices had been made for them way before then._

_ Near silence engulfed them, save for the sound of streaming water, and it was not until a few minutes had passed that Tony spoke once more._

_ "Let's see what happens today and then tomorrow morning. It's still too early to decide what to do… let's see what we can find out for now. But let's stay inside this room until then. Is that OK, Pep?"_

_ "Yes," she pulled back from him and rubbed her face with her hands. "I don't know why, but I'm actually kinda tired. I wouldn't mind napping throughout the day."_

_ "I wouldn't mind either… as long as it's with you."_

_ Her smile was almost automatic and he knew that nothing in the world could have prevented it from shining through. Even after everything that had been said and done, she was still here with him – she was his only constant; the only stable point he could rely upon and use for support. Even if tomorrow Nick Fury royally pissed them off to the point of inciting a major attack, he knew she would have no regrets bringing the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. down as long as it all ended with the duo joining the afterlife __**together**__._

_ He opened his mouth to tell her he loved her, but he immediately realized there was no need for words at this point. She knew it to be true. He knew it to be true. And if being here was any indicator at all, everyone else that knew them in some way, shape or form, also knew that love was the single most essential emotion that existed between the two of them._

_ Otherwise, Nick Fury would have not kidnapped them both._

_Otherwise, Nick Fury would have nothing on them to use for imposing his will on them._

_ Otherwise… they would have never agreed to sit here and wait to see if they would allow Fury to tell them what to do._

xxxXXXxxx

He had a plan, a lousy one that had sprung out at the very last moment, literally _seconds_ before Tony and Pepper had walked in the door to the meeting room, but it was still worth a shot. Fury knew the value that Tony and Pepper placed on family and friends, and this was going to be his last card to play to steer the duo in the direction he wanted them to take: joining the armed forces he had put together to save the world, no matter the cost.

And now, while Tony and Pepper spoke in soft voices in each other's ears and nodded along to a conversation only they were privy to, Nick Fury felt as if all the years of undercover work and passive intervention on his part had all come down to this: sixty minutes of veiled revelations; an hour of providing enough information to reel in the heroes' cooperation, but still keeping the bulk of the precious data to himself – at least until it was appropriate for them to know the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth…

…so help him Odin.

Yes, Nick Fury had a plan… but so did Pepper Potts and Tony Stark.

The current seating arrangement reminded the redhead of the many SI board meetings she had had to endure in the past – meetings she did _not_ miss by any extent of the imagination. The table was rectangular, easily giving away the rankings of the people present in the conference room. At the opposite edges of the table, where the equally important typical powerhouses rested, were Nick Fury on one end and Tony and Pepper on the other end. Maria Hill sat to Nick's right, and to his left sat Black Widow and Hawkeye, the three of them with somber expressions on their faces, all internally praying for the meeting to go the way they had planned.

For their part, Tony and Pepper's postures reflected how much bluffing experience they had acquired during the SI meetings, over the years. Their faces gave away nothing of their thoughts or intentions. What was scarier to Nick than to suddenly see them be so still and quiet, was the fact that it was evident that the duo had had some lengthy conversations by just looking into the other's eyes. The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. sometimes wondered if the two were something close to being psychic.

"You've already wasted five minutes, Nick," Pepper said in a petulant tone, tapping her right index finger on her left wrist even though she was not even wearing a watch. "I hope you don't really believe that stalling will help."

"And I hope, _Mrs. Stark_, that you don't really believe that your current attitude will speed up the process."

"I'm not the one within an inch of my life, Fury, remember? _I'm_ already dead."

The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. gave pause to Pepper's words. But this time, his face remained unchanged. He knew he could not prevent the redhead from seeing right through his façade – he had come to terms with that – but he refused to further clue-in his team of his internally ticking clock. Up until this moment, he had not been certain if Pepper had already had an opportunity to share her insight with her husband. Yet, the quick, almost imperceptible look of confusion on the inventor's face as he gazed his redhead from the corner of his eye had not been swift enough for Nick to misunderstand that Tony was in the know.

"Very well," Fury began with a curt nod towards Maria Hill to silently command to her that the first phase of their plan be placed in motion. Said woman immediately stood up and left. "Might as well get this over with."

Nick Fury stood from his chair and rested his weight on his knuckles on the table. He leaned forward a tad, briefly stared at Tony and Pepper, both of whom stared right back. After taking in a deep breath and hoping against hope that the shit would not hit the fan with his next words, Fury spoke in an uncharacteristically soft tone of voice.

"I know that the first thing you want to know is who's behind this clusterfuck of a threat – behind the bounty, actually, too. But _that_ I can't tell you. At least not yet."

The look of incredulity on the heroes' faces was priceless, and had the situation not been grim and easily flammable, Nick would have laughed aloud.

"The _FUCK_, Fury?" Tony spat and slammed his fists against the table while Pepper simply shook her head and rolled her eyes at Fury's words.

"You're not off to a good start, Nick," Pepper stated, her hands now crossed over her chest. "This is SO not the way to convince us to help your ass."

"Don't misunderstand me: I _will_ tell you who's in charge… just not now. Trust me: you don't want to know yet."

"The hell we don't!" Tony stood up from his chair and pointed towards Nick. "You better quit stalling, Fury, or this meeting is over… NOW!"

"Settle down, Stark," Fury retorted and straightened his back to give an appearance of confidence he truly did not feel or have. "If I tell you who's been fucking around with you, you're gonna leave this very instant to try to stop him without knowing everything you need to know, and the only thing you'll accomplish with that is to end up killing yourself, your wife AND your kid!"

"Of course we will!" Pepper began. "Why the hell wouldn't we chase after him? Whoever this is, he's tried to kill us for YEARS! And since you didn't have the balls to stop him before, we will stop him now!"

"Stop him before? With what?" Fury raised his voice. "A giant slingshot?"

"What do you mean 'with what'?" Pepper scoffed. "You're S.H.I.E.L.D.! You're supposed to have a plan, and then a backup plan… and then a backup for your backup!"

"We had no weapons!" Fury screeched. "You and your husband took a good chunk of our weapons and we never got more! If there's _any_ reason beyond our control that barred us from acting more than we've tried, is because you two_ stopped_ making weapons!"

"Bullshit," Tony rolled his eyes and sat down again. "Stark Solutions was not the only manufactured of weapons."

"No," Fury agreed. "But Hammer Multinational was the next best thing… until you bought it out."

Pepper stared at Tony for an instant, narrowed her eyes a tad and then returned her attention to Fury.

"If you're trying to guilt trip us into helping you, it ain't gonna work," Pepper shook her head. "Now stop going around in circles and tells us what we want to know."

"Your son is alive," Nick deadpanned. "That's all you really need to know. He's been kept in isolation, but he's been well taken care off. We will plan and execute his extraction, but not before the time is right."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Tony asked and rubbed his face with his hands in obvious exasperation. The duo had known in advance that obtaining information from S.H.I.E.L.D. was as painful and slow-moving as pulling teeth at the speed of a snail, but that did not mean they were in the mood to put up with it for long. The implementation of their own agenda depended on the information S.H.I.E.L.D. provided them, and so far, they were yet to take on the bait and release the crucial piece of info that Tony and Pepper needed.

"Why is the right time not now?" Tony continued. "What proof can you give us? Have you seen him? Have you spoken to him? Do you have any actual evidence at all?"

"Yes… and no."

"What?" Tony shook his head. "Which one is it? Yes or no?"

"Both," Fury answered as honestly as he could. "Look, it's… complicated, but –"

"But nothing," Pepper argued. "How can you make claims of something so _**serious**_, without any proof? How do you expect us to believe you if you don't sound too sure yourself? I mean, how do you even know that James is alive?"

Fury opened his mouth to retort, but when he received the cue he had been waiting for from Maria Hill standing by the door, he bit back his words. Instead of responding right away, he exhaled deeply, as if anticipating a large confrontation, and a second before both Pepper and Tony almost called off the meeting altogether, Nick answered their inquiry with a question of his own.

"Why don't you ask the person who took him? She knows more than I do about his well-being."

"She?" Pepper was taken aback, brows furrowed, her look of confusion almost a mirror image of the blue-eyed boy's. "Who took him? Who are you talking about?"

"Me," a voice said from behind, prompting the couple to inhale sharply and tense up. "He's talking about me."

Turning around was unnecessary to know who had just spoken aloud as it was obvious, just by her voice, that whoever they were going to see as soon as they turned to face her, was someone they had known and had trusted for a long time: someone they had actually forgotten about, given the circumstances, but who had at some point played an important role in their lives – most especially, in Tony Stark's.

Pepper swallowed hard but did not turn to face her just yet and instead clenched her eyes shut, as if willing all of this to be nothing more than a very bad dream. She needed a moment to gather her bearings, to adjust to this new development neither of them had anticipated. But before Pepper could utter the words that were screaming to be let out, Tony turned around to face the brunette and beat her to the punch.

"You… _you_ took _my _son?"

Had it been any other time, Pepper would have been so proud of the icy and bloodcurdling tone Tony had just used to address his former fiancée. Yet, for now, all she could do was to run through different scenarios in her head of how this conversation could go, and think about all the possible ways she currently wanted to personally assure the demise of the woman she had once called her friend; a woman that was now revealed to have betrayed them in the worst of ways.

"It wasn't part of the plan – for me to take him with me, that is." Maya clarified. "My actual assignment was to kill him… or at least try to."

A screech coming from the feet of a chair on the concrete ground was the only warning that anyone got before Maya Hansen's back was slammed against the back wall of the room, her feet dangled about a foot above the floor, and her windpipe was being constricted by the left forearm of none other than Pepper Potts-Stark.

"Stand down, Potts!"

The sounds of multiple lock and loaded guns aiming to her back meant nothing to Pepper. The shouting of every agent present in the room, Nick Fury included, that she needed to release a choking Maya and take a step back went in one ear and came out the other. Her completely dilated eyes and every muscle in her body had one single concern at the moment, and it was nowhere in the vicinity of paying heed to the warnings she was currently receiving from the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"For the last time," Fury snarled. "Let her GO!"

The redhead further narrowed her eyes, and the brunette could only simultaneously both admire and fear the look in her normally and otherwise hazel orbs. Before her was not the girl with whom she had spent years of her life, befriending and sharing secrets with. Before her was not the woman that had inadvertently charmed her way into the heart of the only man the brunette had ever truly loved, and who she had eventually married despite the odds. Before her was not Pepper Potts, superhero to the rescue. Before her was a woman scorned, angry and ready to kill whoever stood in her path.

Before her was Patricia Potts: the warrior she had been destined to become, and not by her choice.

Tony slowly walked over to his wife, almost as if he was simply taking a walk in the park, but also with pronounced determination. He then stood a foot behind her rigid form that still held Maya's life in her hands and allowed the redhead to continue to injure the brunette for just one more moment. He waited a few more seconds after that to allow his being there to become a reality to the redhead, and before the brunette had to be revived by the use of CPR, Tony's eerily calm voice resonated in the room.

"Wait until after we find him," Tony's eyes never left Maya's pleading and scared ones. "Then we'll decide what to do with her."

It took no more than two seconds and one blink of an eye for Pepper's pupils to return to normal after hearing Tony's command, and an extra second for the sound of Maya's body hitting the ground to follow. Coughing and gasping sounds trailed Pepper taking a step back from the so-called botanist, and not half a second later, everyone in the room let out a breath they did not know they had held inside.

And that moment, this exact instant when Pepper turned around to stare at Nick to share with him a silent promise of inflicting pain onto him sooner rather than later, was when the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. knew that his plan was not going to work out.

xxxXXXxxx

"Well, that went great," Clint Barton joked as he led a very quiet Tony and Pepper to the location of Maya Hansen's lab. "You sure know how to make a point, Potts."

Pepper did not spare the man a glance and kept her sight focused on the path before her. Her mind was still trying to refute what they had just learned and seen during what had turned out to be the shortest-lived meeting of all time, but the evidence to the contrary was damning. Fifteen minutes after everyone had cooled their jets following Maya's near-death experience at the hands of the redhead, Pepper was yet to say a word to anyone, Tony included, and the only hint that she was still aware of her surroundings was her hand currently linked to the inventor's.

The walk from the meeting room to Maya's very own command center had been lengthy and unexciting, but it had served a greater purpose for them in the long run. Thanks to the change of plans in the course of the meeting, Tony and Pepper now had a better idea of the resources that were available to them. They had learned in the past few minutes that the location they were presently in was enormous, extremely underground and was of a military, research and development nature that was not in line with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s typical schematics and blueprints. The two heroes had practically memorized the agency's modus operandi and common building patterns amongst S.H.I.E.L.D.'s varied facilities around the world, and this particular one did not fit the bill of what it should have resembled had it been a true and pure S.H.I.E.L.D. location.

_They're working with someone else_.

This had been one of Tony's only two thoughts since the moment they had been forced to take multiple elevators and walk down several staircases to bring them to a lower, private and typically off-limits level of the underground facility. The intricacies of the building itself made him feel as if he was back at the Maggia's hideout – although, this place was actually clean and well-kept. The simple reminder, however, that the last time he had been escorted to a forbidden area of a large structure his life had changed, simply did not sit well with him at all.

_Someone else is hosting them here. Who else is working with them? Who the hell can it be?_

Gene was yet to be seen, but Tony believed that it was safe to assume that he was here, somewhere, waiting for the best opening to make his actual whereabouts known. The wealth of the Khan family rivaled his and his father's, and it was not outlandish to come to the conclusion that perhaps the Mandarin was one of the many sponsors needed to support a state-of-the-art facility such as this. Tony and Pepper had been kept here for no more than 36 hours since awakening, but in that short amount of time they had both been in awe at the advanced technology that was hosted here.

How had such a place stayed off of their radar for so long? Was this a new facility or had it been salvaged by S.H.I.E.L.D.? Who was providing the tech for it?

The blue-eyed boy knew that there were plenty of opportunities for improvement for some of the devices in here, but there were some others that he wanted to further analyze and even pull apart to learn their components. Had this been a social visit, he would have already pranced around the building, hacking into everything that caught his curious eye. Nonetheless, their presence here was everything but friendly or mutual, and the more he thought about it, the more concerned he became of their continued stay in the edifice.

This realization brought him back to his second thought: the status of his redhead's mind. He was still surprised yet grateful that his voice had broken whatever anger-filled spell she had been in, and while he could not blame her for reacting the way she had, he was still plagued by questions he knew everyone had to be asking themselves about her now. Pepper was strong and agile – she had been like that before they had even met. Throughout their years together, she had picked up several tricks of the vigilante trade from him and she had also been briefly trained by Gene Khan himself. Yet, none of these reasons justified what she had been able to do moments ago: lift a woman that weighed more than she did and just about ended her life – all without any indication of remorse.

The manner in which Pepper had reacted towards Maya reminded him so much of the way she had treated Mitch Richards after he had insulted them and had threatened Tony when they had ended their partnership with SI. Just as then, it was as if a switch had been flipped within her and the Pepper he knew had been sent to the backseat only for an evil version of her to take control of the wheel. He knew he suffered from the same issue whenever he was angry or someone he loved was in danger, but he had never seen Pepper react that way until the past few months.

And it scared him more than he wanted to admit.

Even though he did not want to think about it, the fear that whatever he still suspected that S.H.I.E.L.D. had done to her to change her behavior could have possibly transpired once more when they had been unconscious was overpoweringly present in his mind. He did not want to believe it, not even consider it, but the reality that Pepper was acting odd at the moment made him feel uneasy. It was not as if he was afraid of her or anything of the sort, it was more the fact that a recurrence of her fate in their jet could be in the offing for her… and he would probably again not be able to do anything to prevent it. He had not been able to do anything when he had had his lab and tech at his disposition. What good would he be to her when they were trapped?

_I can't lose her. Not again. Not like that. Not if our son is alive. Not __**ever**__._

"Here we are!"

Tony's eyes shifted from side-staring at his wife to eyeing the entrance before them. Hawkeye wasted no time in unlocking the double-doors for them, and the instant the archer motioned for the duo to walk inside, they immediately did, yet only for the inventor to become infuriated by the fact that not only was Maya Hansen already present in the lab, but that Nick Fury had brought Gene Khan with him as well.

"How the hell did you manage to beat us here?" Tony asked, his right hand still holding on to Pepper's as he practically led her closer to the trio, and this being the only reason why he did not jump Gene where he stood to give him a large chunk of his mind. Tony knew that all his typical and natural reactions to upsetting news had to be contained at the moment, as he strongly believed that Pepper needed him sane and levelheaded more than ever, right now. He would have thought that seeing Gene here would have snapped her from the daze she seemed to be in, but she was yet to react to any outside stimuli at all. It was a miracle, in fact, that she was still holding on to his hand as tightly as she was.

"You just took the scenic route," Nick said and nodded to Hawkeye to dismiss him. "We needed to get here first and you needed to cool down."

"So, in other words: you needed to waste more of our time. And you," Tony then eyed Gene. "You have some balls showing up in here. You owe me a jet… and an apology to Jonas' family."

"Mr. Clark is alive and well," Fury interjected. "We made sure your pilot was not harmed."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Tony replied. "But knowing you, I should probably not believe shit, even then."

Gene's snarky retort to Tony never made it past his lips when it dawned on the Mandarin that Pepper was staring intently at him. This was the first time she was seeing him since their inappropriate kiss months ago, and after certainly being made aware of his involvement in her arrival here, he was not sure what to make of her reaction to seeing him again. Her face looked neutral and her eyes were soulless, something that was out of character for the redhead, which hurt him more than if she had gone off on him right now. He knew that what he had done had been a betrayal of the highest order, and he also knew that he owed her better than that. Nonetheless, Fury had made it very clear to him that the unorthodox manner in which Tony and Pepper had been placed under house arrest had been the only way to extend their already shortening lives.

And for Pepper, just like Tony, Gene would do the impossible and beyond.

"Anyway," Maya finally spoke up, her words carefully chosen and measured so as not to set off the redhead's wrath again. "The reason why we're here is because this is the best clinical and computer lab of the entire facility. And we need for you to reactivate the Iron Man operation; servers, systems, suits and all."

"You want us to _what_?" Tony shook his head to make sure he had heard her words correctly. "You want me to just _hand_ you our weapons? Did Pepper burst a vein in your brain or what?"

"You've been hacking into our servers," Pepper finally spoke, surprising everyone with her sudden return to reality, although her voice was not as angry-sounding as before. "Or at least tried to, with no luck."

"Yes, we did and have… _tried_," Fury admitted. "But no one here has been able to establish a connection to the Makluan Temple, secure or otherwise."

"And you won't be able to," Tony informed them, for now ignoring the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. knew of their base of operations. "Pepper and I secured the crap out of the servers in the temple. Not to mention the fact that everything was automatically wiped out the moment we were reported dead."

"Told you, Fury," Maya said and crossed her arms over her chest. "They wouldn't just leave all that tech at the mercy of anyone."

"Least of all you," Tony said and no one there was sure if he had referred to all three of them or just one of them in particular. "Is this why you kept us alive? Because you need us to get my suits?"

"No. We never wanted to kill you," Fury answered. "I don't know how many times I have to repeat that. We just woke you up sooner than we wanted to because we got tired of not being able to reach the Iron Man specs and data."

"And you think we're just going to give you what you want?" Pepper scoffed, sounding more and more like herself with every word that came out of her mouth. "You're still to tell us anything useful, Fury. You promised us answers and you've yet to deliver."

"I have some answers," Maya said before Fury could reply. "Not all of them, but I have these."

Maya walked over to her laptop and after a few taps and clicks, a projector turned on behind her. Seconds later, images of James Howard Stark appeared on the screen, and it was then that Tony and Pepper realized that their freedom was not the only thing that had been snatched from them without consent. Something far more precious and irreplaceable had also been taken away – something they could never get back: time.

Pepper pulled her hand away from Tony's and slowly walked towards the screen. Her palm landed on the reflection of her son, smiling for the camera, dressed in clothes that she knew he had never worn or had been bought by them, and she held back a sob. He looked otherwise healthy and happy, a rosy color highlighting his tiny cheeks and his blue eyes more dashing than usual, but what hurt the redhead the most was the fact that he was so much older than she remembered him to be.

"How long?" Pepper turned around to stare at Fury as she began asking the question she knew was also crossing Tony's mind. "How long were we asleep?"

"Pepper," Gene began, his palms raised in a conceding motion. "We had to keep you like that. We had to make sure that –"

"_HOW_ LONG?!" the redhead spat.

"Six weeks," Maya replied. "Your plane blew up six weeks ago. These pictures," the botanist-turned-geneticist pointed to the screen, "they were taken two weeks ago. That was the last time I saw him, but I know he's still alive."

"Who…" Tony swallowed hard, not wanting to lose the opportunity to get some answers while they were willing to provide them, but he still felt his heart swell in all kinds of emotions at piecing together what had been done to them, to their son. What he now knew meant for so much time to have gone by: James, if truly still alive, was now almost 18 months old. And Tony did not really have any doubts about his son's survival any longer, looking at these images. "Who's watching over him now?"

"My stepfather," Maya exhaled nervously. "Aldrich Killian."

"Why?" Tony's hands clenched into fists. "Just… how… WHY?"

"Because our employer needs him alive, your son. He… he changed his mind about killing him…"

"Your employer?" Pepper asked as she took small steps towards Maya, her mind racing and making the scientist gulp. "Your employer is the one who set the bounty? You… _you've_ been part of this ALL ALONG?"

"Not entirely, no," she defended herself and took a step back. "I tried to warn you. I really did… I… I didn't know what I'd gotten myself into until… until I couldn't get out of it."

"You_ tried_ to warn us?" Tony scoffed. "How and when exactly did you do that?"

"The crows," Maya replied almost instantly, her hands pointing to a table nearby that held samples of black feathers, blackish-looking long beaks and red, formaldehyde-preserved bird's eyes. "I-I sent the crows… to your apartment. I… the message… _kill it or we will_… that was me. I did that."

"You…" Pepper pointed to the brunette, anger oozing out of every word that came out of her, yet she kept her distance from her for the sake of her son. "You... CREATED the damned birds that wanted to poke my eyes out?!"

"Pepper, calm down…" Gene's words did nothing to stop the slowly building volcano within her that was about to erupt. "There's more to it than –"

"YOU broke into our _home_?" it was Tony's turn to state aloud the many emotions and thoughts that were currently running wild inside of him. "You destroyed our belongings, some things we couldn't replace… risked Pepper's pregnancy… you… you put us… put _**HER**_ in danger to WARN us?!"

"That was the only way I could do it!" Maya began. "I… I-I tried to reach you… but with him watching, with everyone watching me, I just couldn't make it too obvious. Your apartment was already rigged and targeted… he knew where you lived… I… I just had to get you to go somewhere else to buy some time!"

"Who did? Your stepfather?" Tony asked. "Your stepfather set up the bounty?"

"No," she shook her head. "But-but… but he… we… we were part of it… we were on the list of invites… for it…"

Tony's eyes widened at the memory her words triggered, and he had to hold his weight against the edge of the table where the damned crow body parts lay.

_ Rhona's eyes looked up at the inventor and tears returned to her eyes when she heard his irritated words and saw him walking up to her again. This time, he grabbed her by the top of her head and pulled her up until her feet dangled in the air. She did not even have the nerve to try to release herself from his tight grip. _

"_For the last time, Erwin: __**Why**__ did you send those__** crows**__ to __**my**__ apartment? WHY?"_

_ "I-I…" she whined. "I don't know what you're talking about. I-I…I didn't send anything to your apartment. I swear!"_

_ "Stop lying!" Tony spat, increased his hold on her head and made the girl whimper in pain. "Who wants us dead? Who?"_

_ "I don't know who! I don't!"_

_ "LIAR!" Tony said, closed his faceplate and tightened his grasp on her. "WHO? Who is it?"_

_ "I DON'T KNOW! All I know is that there's money involved! I… I didn't even care all that much about the money… all… all I wanted was revenge!"_

_ "Revenge?" Tony scoffed. "You want to talk about revenge? I'll show you revenge!"_

_**"Stark, stop it!"**_

_"SHUT UP!"_

_ "Please, no," Rhona begged. "Please, please don't kill me."_

_ "Then tell me who put a hit on us!"_

_ "I swear I don't know! I just got the invitation! I don't know who it is!"_

_ "The… the __**invitation**__?" Tony was taken aback and, for a second loosened his clutch on her head. "What invitation?"_

_ "A video… I got a video… It was sent to the institute. The voice… it was distorted… and there was no face… the voice… the voice said that there was a bounty out for your head… and Pepper's… and when the news said she was pregnant, the baby was added to the list… That's all I know. That's ALL I know!"_

_ "Where's the video? Do you still have it?"_

_ "No!" she sobbed. "The instructions said to burn it… so I did…"_

_ Tony's anger returned with that. "Who else is in this group? Who else is out to get me?"_

_ Rhona blinked back a few tears, took in a deep breath and replied. "Everyone… it was sent to everyone."_

_ "Everyone? What do you mean 'everyone'? Who is everyone?"_

_ "Everyone you've ever hurt. Everyone you've ever crossed paths with. And… and you should not even be here. You-you should just let me go. You should be with Pepper because… because the highest bounty is for her head… for her dead, __**detached**__ head."_

"I…" Tony swallowed hard. "I killed Rhona… because I thought… she said… she told me… and I thought… I…"

Tony closed his eyes tightly and cursed his luck at no chairs being nearby to sit down. This day was turning out to be too much for him, more than he had anticipated it would be, and he was now starting to see why Nick had informed them that neither he nor Pepper were ready to face the truth. He was not blind to the fact that an operation of this variety, one that required him and Pepper to be removed from the map in such a complex way, was one that needed to be carefully planned and executed. What he had not envisioned, however, was that he had allowed whomever Maya's employer was to play him for a fool, all this time.

He had literally slept with the enemy, welcomed her into his home – a home he had shared with Pepper, nonetheless. And on top of that, he had almost married her. _Married_ her! He had almost tied the knot with the woman that had sent mutated killer crows to his house! He had opened the gates for her, let Maya Hansen in and befriend him, Pepper _and_ his family. He had given her free access to everything he knew and almost everything he had. _Almost _everything, not all, but whatever he had let her see, learn and use of his had been more than enough.

Just as he had done with his son to S.H.I.E.L.D. when they checked him for Extremis, he had handed her the keys to _his life_ on a silver platter, little to no questions asked.

"Tony," Pepper's whispered voice made him hang his head in shame. "Tony, look at me, please."

He wanted to, but he could not. He just could not face her right now. He knew that she had already come to the same conclusion he had concerning how he had permitted this bounty to carry on for so long. He had believed that he had been doing anything in his power to stop it, but instead he had played as much part of its development as everyone else who had signed up for it. He might have not received the video invitation and he had not been offered the money, but he had been a player of this game as much as Maya Hansen and Rhona Erwin were.

"Tony, you didn't know," Pepper pleaded with him, but he was still unable to open his eyes or speak. She was now standing in front of him, pinning him between her body and the table behind him, her back to the silent trio observing the scene. Her hands were softly tracing his face and her lips were leaving small pecks on his mouth, begging him to not carry the weight of his guilt all on his own.

"There was no way we could've known," the redhead continued in a higher voice when Tony continued to disregard her words. "She played you, Tony. Played _us_. She lied to both of us. We trusted her and she betrayed us."

Maya bit down her lower lip and looked away from the couple – even after all these years, seeing them together still hurt. She knew she had no right to be jealous, no reason to believe that she had been cheated out of something she never truly had, but there was still a part of her that became irritated when she saw them like this, caring for one another, shutting out the world and just being themselves: concentrating on the needs of the other. This was all she had ever wanted to have, with Tony at that, but that battle had been lost before it had been given a chance to start.

"_Played __**us**__,"_ Pepper's words echoed in Maya's mind. She wanted to defend herself, tell them both how things had really turned out for her and how she truly had not had a say in what had been done, but she knew it was not yet the time. This was not even the tip of the iceberg, and she could already see the toll learning what had been done to them all these years was taking on them. They were not ready, not physically, mentally or otherwise, to carry the burden that Nick and her had been fully carrying for almost four, long years.

_And they don't even know yet… the worst revelation of all… they're yet to find out that…_

Maya's thoughts dissipated the moment she heard Gene clear his throat and she then felt herself being pushed towards the exit by the Mandarin alter ego himself.

"Let's give them a moment," Gene said and stared at a still unmoving Nick Fury with a face that told him he was not making a suggestion, but giving a command. "Just a few minutes. They won't go anywhere right now."

Nick opened his mouth to tell Gene where exactly he could put his order, but when he eyed the young married couple for an instant and saw Tony hold onto his wife for dear life while his forehead rested on her shoulder, he knew that they did need a few moments to process what they had just found out. There was no way that Tony and Pepper could leave the premises of their own accord for now, and while Tony's Extremis continued to be remotely influenced by Maya Hansen – just as it had been all this time – it was safe to leave the two of them alone.

"Five minutes," Fury said as he began walking towards the door. "But that's all they get. We've got lots to do."

"Ten minutes," Gene said and flashed his mind reading and manipulation ring towards the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Or they won't be the only ones to find out everything they need to know before they're supposed to."

Nick narrowed his eyes but relented to Gene's plan. He was yet to tempt his fate with the leader of the Tong, and now that it had been confirmed to him that there was very little that S.H.I.E.L.D. could do against Makluan technology without Tony or Howard Stark's help, Fury had no choice but to play along with Gene's actions and thoughts.

"Time them," Nick told Maya once they were all outside. "And tell the others that their presence will be needed soon. _Very_ soon."

xxxXXXxxx

Tony sat in front of a computer screen in Maya Hansen's lab, acting as if he could accomplish what he promised he would even though he knew his best efforts would be in vain. Both he and Pepper had known in advance that what Nick and Maya had wanted them to do was impossible to complete from their current location, but they did not need to be aware of that just now. In fact, they did not need to know about it ever, if that was at all possible to remain the case.

After they had been left alone, Tony and Pepper had spent a few minutes in silence, simply holding on to the other while they watched the rotating pictures of their son. Even though James was still James, they could tell he had continued to develop just as nature mandated he did. He was still a baby with his full life ahead of him, but they could also see that he was starting to become his own person. His face was much more defined, and he was definitely taller and leaner than the last time they had held him in their arms. He almost looked like a small version of Tony, save for his lighter-colored hair, and the smile that their son had had in one of the pictures truly spoke that he was his father's son. It was the same smile that had melted her heart several times – that playful smile that told the world that he knew something that no one else knew about.

_No more secrets_, Tony thought as he continued typing random lines of code that he knew would not get him into the Makluan Temple's already powered down servers. _Very soon, S.H.I.E.L.D. won't be able to keep secrets from us._

He knew that he and Pepper were gambling the very little freedom they had at the moment, but the circumstances had really not left them with any other choice. He was risking his life and she was risking hers, but if there was a chance that they could save their son from Maya and Aldrich, they would gladly do whatever it took to make it happen – even if they lost their lives in the process. They knew that baby James would never truly be alone; there were many people that loved him and would take him in, but they also knew that if they did not bring down with them whoever had been stalking the pair for years, their sacrifice would not guarantee their son's safety and well-being.

_"Are you sure about this, Pep?" _Tony remembered asking his wife, little over an hour ago, when she had told him what she wanted to do. _"Do you think he'll agree to it?"_

_"He'd better,"_ Pepper had responded to him, seconds before Nick Fury, Gene Khan and Maya Hansen had returned to the lab to continue their talk. _"I'll make him agree to it. It's the least he can do for us."_

And it truly _was_ the least he could do to redeem himself. Yet, Tony could still only hope that she had been right.

"Tony?" Maya's voice carried over from where she sat, a few feet away from him, and he could not help to look up and glare at her. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, we're pressed for time, but you seem to be making no progress over there."

"I'm fine," he replied and returned his eyes to the screen. "It'll take a few hours, but I can do this. I'll get the servers back online."

"Are you positive?" Maya tilted her head to the right, guilt still eating her up inside and trying to make this entire ordeal somewhat comfortable for him. "Maybe you should take a page out of Pepper's book and go rest for a while. You… you both have been hit with so much grief today. Maybe… maybe you should wait until tomorrow to hack into the temple?"

"No," Tony shook his head. "I have to do it now," he added after a pause before he looked up from the screen to her face once more and continued his end of the plan. "Although, I don't know what the point of doing this is if we can't go get our suits. It would be so much easier to just go to the temple and do it from there. It would take ten minutes, tops, to reboot the system from over there. That's how it was originally designed to work."

"No, Tony," Maya shook her head vehemently. "You heard Fury: you _can't_ leave this place. We'll go get the suits whenever we can. But you and Pepper _cannot_ return to the surface yet."

"Why the fuck not?" Tony argued back. "People think we're dead and no one's gonna be looking for us at the temple. You-you've said it yourself! We've been 'dead' for six weeks! SIX WEEKS! They… they've buried us… they… No one's looking for us. Our families think we're gone."

Maya sighed loudly, scratched the side of her head with her right hand, rose from her chair and then walked over to where Tony sat to stand before him. She did not dare to get too close to him, even if he clearly and urgently required comfort right now. She had long ago learned that she could never give him what he wanted or needed, no matter how desperate for it he was or how hard she tried to help him. Only Pepper could ease the troubles of his heart and mind. Only Pepper could speak to him without uttering a sound and touch his soul with her eyes. And the redhead's actions and words were the only ones that the inventor wanted to be consoled by, anyway.

"Tony, look. I… I know, _believe_ me, I _know_ that I'm the last person on Earth that you trust right now. I know… I know what you must be thinking of me. I know that I have no right to ask anything from you, but… but I'm still going to, so: please… _please_ do _not_ go to the armory. Do NOT go outside. Don't try to find a way around it… just… don't. Please. _Please_, don't."

Tony silently eyed her with nothing but distrust for a moment, briefly stared at the table he had rested against when he had found out about his indirect involvement in the bounty, and then stole a quick glance at the location that had once held a sample that was now nowhere near the lab. His eyes then returned to the computer screen, pretended to read the gibberish he had been typing on it, and when he continued to be silent, Maya sighed and resumed her speech.

"I know that what I did wasn't the best way to help you and Pepper, but that's really all I wanted to do. It's… it's just like when you had Gene erase Pepper's memories of you two together. You thought that was best… and I thought that I was doing was best for you, too."

"Excuse me?" Tony's head recoiled and he almost choked at how pathetic her words sounded to him. "You _thought_ it was _best_ to let us think our son was dead?"

"Of course not!" Maya shook her head again. "But I had no say in that!"

"Will you stop saying that?" Tony screamed, even angrier at her than before as it now appeared to him that Maya had not been chastised enough. "People always have a say in what they do! There's always a choice!"

"No! You're wrong!" Maya's voice rose, as well. "There isn't always a choice! Sometimes the choice is made for you, even before you knew you had to decide what to do!"

"And you thought it was OK to support the murder of a baby? Of MY son?"

"It was already going to happen, Tony! I decided to be involved in it to make it less painful for him!"

"Less painful? _LESS_ painful?" Tony threw his arms in the air. "Oh, please, let me apologize to you. How rude have I been? Thank you, so much, for making my son's premature death LESS painful for him!"

"Tony, please…"

"Please, nothing!" Tony stood up from the chair. "You kept my son from us. You almost caused Pepper and me to take our own lives because of it! You… you're a horrible, horrible monster! You… I think you've even topped Gene Khan! Congratulations!"

"Tony–"

"No, shut up," Tony slammed his fists against the table and leaned over it so that his face was closer to hers. "I don't care what you think you prevented with this. I don't care what Fury said about me and Pepper leaving. We WILL find a way out, and once we do and we suit up, _you_'re going to be the first one I take down, you cold, heartless, _murderous _bitch!"

"NO!" Maya returned the hard tone he was using now. It was all she could to not let him see how much his last words had hurt her. "You HAVE to listen to me! You have to get it out of your stubborn mind that you can return to the world! To the armory! You just CAN'T do that!"

"Why not?" Tony contended. "Give me ONE good fucking reason for us not to try to escape from this place, right now."

xxxXXXxxx

She had not traveled via _Mandarin Express_ that many times before, but the very few times she had, she had noticed the existence of the same tingly sensation all over her body that she felt throughout the quick trip, just as now. She was not certain where the goosebumps could be coming from, but she had a suspicion that the process related to whatever quantum-dot science principles had gone into creating the rings, was responsible for them. She was not going to stand here and pretend that she knew more than Gene or Tony about Makluan science, but she did not need to be a genius like them to know that it was probably closely associated with the act of literally beaming your molecules from one place to the next.

And that was not even including the dizziness and nauseated feeling she was left with if she did not close her eyes during the _magic_ voyage.

"You can open your eyes now," Mandarin said behind his armor after he landed them at the entrance of the Makluan Temple. "Better make this fast."

"I'll try," Pepper said and took a step back from Gene after he returned to his regular form. "But it's gonna take a few minutes to get everything back on and then about ten to fifteen more to activate the servers."

"Activate the servers?" Gene was taken aback. "I thought you said you only needed to run some tests. I thought Stark was the one turning on the servers from S.H.I.E.L.D."

Pepper stared at Gene with a raised eyebrow, a tilt of the head and a light shrug, and a second after that, Gene realized he had been played.

"Great. Just _great_."

"He's buying us some time," Pepper said while she got on her knees before the main entrance door and began patting the ground around her with her palms. "The servers and their data cannot be restored using a remote connection. They need four of Tony's or my registered biometrics to even initiate the process of accessing the disk image of the OS from the hidden drive partition."

"What?"

"The servers aren't worth shit until I bleed into to them."

"Oh-kay," Gene furrowed his brows. "I think I preferred the technical explanation better."

"You asked!"

Gene watched intently as Pepper took turns pressing and moving what seemed like random pieces of the bricks on the ground and on the walls adjacent to the entrance doors. A couple of minutes after she had hit the ground the first time, she finally stood up, wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her left hand, and then smiled in satisfaction when the doors opened up.

"You know I could've just teleported us inside, Pepper."

"Perhaps," Pepper said as she took out a small flashlight from her sweatpants' front right pocket, turned it on and then aimed inside the darkened hall of the temple but did not step in. "But after protocol 3YE-W0R7D took place, the entire temple turned into a giant landmine."

"What?!"

"The temple!" Pepper said in an exasperated tone. "When Rhodey and Happy started protocol 3YE-W0R7D after we… _died_, I guess? Everything shut down. All the suits were deactivated and the Mark II armor that Happy used and the War Machine suit flew back to the temple on their own. There's a specific sequence that must be followed to reactivate everything – from the circuit breakers to the computers – so that nothing bad happens. No biggie. I can get it done."

"No biggie. Sure," Gene said with a hint of incredulity and loads of distress. "And what happens if you don't do it that way? What happens if you mess it up?"

"The self-destruct system activates and we get blown up inside."

"Well, that's… nice. You know what the correct sequence is, right?"

"Of course I do!" Pepper scoffed and waved her right hand at him. "Tony and I designed it… and practiced it… one time…"

"One time? And were you paying attention that one time, Pepper?"

"Uhm…"

"Pepper?"

The redhead's eyes shifted left and right, and despite the situation, Pepper could not hold back the nervous chuckle that escaped her mouth.

xxxXXXxxx

"How about seeing your son alive again?" Maya suggested and walked back to her seat. "Isn't that a good enough reason for you?"

"It would've been, if I could trust your words," Tony replied and sat down in his chair once more. "I don't understand, Maya. Why did you do this to us? Why did you get involved?"

"I already told you why!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know what I was doing! I thought I was doing something else… and then… and then I couldn't just quit. Not when I was that deep into it."

"Couldn't or didn't want to stop?" Tony snarled.

"Take your pick."

xxxXXXxxx

"Are we almost done here, Pepper?" Gene asked, trying his best to hide the anxiety that had suddenly invaded him. He was not certain why, but the moment Pepper had been able to restore power to the temple and the computers and the lights had come on, he had felt a chill run down his spine. He could not pinpoint its origin no matter how much he kept staring everywhere around them, but the fact that even with his rings he could not see what he could feel was nearby, it did not mean that his fears were not justified.

"We should really go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. before they realize we left."

"Hang on. This is the last biometric the operating system and firmware need to restart," Pepper replied as she kept her eye open for the scanner to read her left iris. So far, she had placed all ten fingerprints on a machine to verify her identity, had punctured her right index fingertip on a small needle to provide a blood sample to match her DNA strand, and just seconds before her eye was to be scanned, she had uttered a nonsensical sentence into a microphone to a voice recognition device. Gene's head was spinning at the level of security protocols the heroes had established to keep their weapons safe from abuse, and he now realized that Nick Fury had been correct: their false death would be exposed if they tried to get out.

"Pepper, please."

"Just wait, OK? It will take about ten minutes for the process to be completed."

"Can't you just let it run its course? Do we have to be here for it to finish?"

"No, we don't. And I totally could, but I won't."

"Why not?"

"Because," Pepper said as she pulled the front of her blouse, reached inside her bra and pulled out a small bag. "I need to run some sample analysis, right now."

"What is that?" Gene asked as he walked closer to where she stood but the redhead did not reply. "Pepper, what is that?"

"Bird feathers. Mutated bird's feathers."

xxxXXXxxx

Several minutes had passed since he had last spoken, and the more he stared at the clock, the more nervous he became. Now that the mix of intensified emotions was disappearing, Tony was having second thoughts about what he had let Pepper do on her own – about what she had suggested she could do with one of the crow feather samples at their very own lab. At this point in time, and since she was yet to come back to Maya's lab like she had stated she would if Gene did not agree to take her to the temple, he could safely assume that she and the Mandarin were off site.

Now, as he thought about Maya's words and the fact that he had no way to communicate with his redhead from where he currently was, he began having a feeling of dread invade his very bones. What if Gene double-crossed them, too? What if this was all just a farce to get their suits up and running, and the moment Pepper chanted that Iron Man was back in business, Gene killed her on the spot? What if nothing was as it seemed and Nick Fury was actually still trying to kill them?

_Pepper_, Tony clenched his hands and closed his eyes, praying for a moment that he was wrong. _Be safe, Pepper. Please, be safe. _

He wanted to trust her – he _did_ trust her. But he was not sure if she could hold her own against a full attack from the Mandarin without her suit. Just as he was not sure if James could survive living with Aldrich Killian and whoever else was in on the bounty, too. The two most beloved people in his life were both out on their own, fending for themselves against enemies and the world, and all he could do for them at the moment was sit here and silently pray to a deity he did not believe in.

"No luck?" Maya asked from back in her seat, noticing how even more distressed Tony looked by the second. "Servers giving you a hard time?"

"Nothing I didn't already expect," he replied calmly, to her surprise. "But now, I was just… I was thinking about my son. How… how was he… the last time you saw him?"

Maya gave him a small smile. "Like always: all over the place. He… he has a difficult time staying put. He wants to see everything and everyone. He just wants to be in the middle of it all and wants to know how things work and why they work. He's… he's wrecked my lab a few times, actually, moving stuff around or flipping switches that he was not supposed to touch."

Tony chuckled at her words. He could picture it – all of it: a little version of Pepper with his eyes, intelligence and curiosity; a little version of himself with her hyperactivity, daringness and spunk.

_Yup. Sounds about right!_

That kiddo sure was his and Pepper's son.

"Does he…" Tony's eyes focused on his screen and he gulped, his gaze showing how difficult it was for him to state the words, to have this conversation, especially with the person who had taken James from them. "Does he remember us?"

"He does," Maya replied with a nod. "I… I've never let him forget who you are."

"And you?" Tony once again looked up from the screen to stare at her eyes, her response triggering hope in him. "Do you remember who you are?"

"Tony…"

"Do you?" the inventor insisted. "Do you remember what we used to be? What you and Pepper used to be? Did it ever cross your mind when you took our son from us? Where is he, Maya? Where is James?"

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper stood waiting with her arms crossed and her foot tapping on the floor of the lab as she waited for the results. She and Tony had agreed that they would use their equipment at the temple to run their own analysis on the bird samples from Maya's lab, figuring that the young woman had most likely created the mutant fowls at the location where she had been staying the past couple of years since she and Tony had broken up. If they could find out where the original, non-mutated habitat of this species of crow was, maybe they would have an idea of where their son was being kept. At least, this was the hope.

As she continued to wait, she began running down her mental list of all of Iron Man's major enemies who may have held this much of a grudge against Tony to put out the bounty on the two of them to begin with. Some of the possible candidates had already been dealt with before the bounty had been placed, and some had been apprehended or killed while trying to collect on it. She was trying to figure out who the mastermind was through process of elimination.

MODOC had been permanently deactivated quite some time ago, and probably torn to pieces and sold as scrap on eBay. Ghost and Rhona were both dead as well, courtesy of Tony Stark himself. Whiplash was dead thanks to the Mandarin, and Sasha Hammer had been killed in the chaotic event that was the undoing of the entire Maggia organization. Justin Hammer, Count Nefaria, Killer Shrike and Blizzard had all been zombified long ago, and then killed again by Scott Summers a few months before Sasha's demise. Agent Mallen had been dead for some time, from a similar Extremis complication as the one Tony had been dealing with over a year ago. Who else was dead? Mr. Fix? Was it possible that he had had a backup copy of himself stored away? Was he not really dead as Tony had believed, and was really the one behind the bounty?

Then there were the enemies she knew were still alive: the Controller, Unicorn and the Black Knight were all still imprisoned on the Helicarrier, which Fury had informed them was currently docked in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. hangar in the American Midwest. AIM was unaccounted for ever since Unicorn and Black Knight, along with Whiplash, had been sent to kill Pepper. Did AIM have a new leader who had been the one to set the bounty, or had they merely received the invitation? Former Project Pegasus leader, Anton Harchov, had not been heard from by Team Iron Man for years; was _he_ the one behind all of this? Obadiah Stane was still in a coma… or was he? Could he have awakened, somehow faked his continued comatose state by using a decoy, and tapped into some hidden supply of funds that he had kept and used it to put out the bounty? It did kind of seem his style.

She looked over her shoulder at Gene Khan as an idea came to her, and she noticed her companion had an uneasy look in his eyes.

"Gene, whatever happened to your stepfather, Zhang?" At this, the Mandarin seemed to shake his head to clear it, and then looked at her with his habitual scowl.

"After I had acquired the first five Makluan rings, and then found out that there were five more out there, I decided to go find Zhang before I began my quest for the remaining rings with Howard Stark." He said this with a fierceness and contempt that caused Pepper to feel a little bit of her old sympathy for him, knowing that his life with his stepfather had been very difficult for him.

"And… did you?" she asked, hesitantly. Gene nodded to her inquiry.

"Yes. Rhodes had left him in the countryside only a few miles away from the Peruvian temple. I found him, and… I avenged my mother."

Pepper nodded in understanding, not prying for further details, knowing he needed to explain no more. So that was out: Xin Zhang was not the one to set the bounty.

Was it possible that someone who they did not even know, or did not remember ever meeting and upsetting, was the one responsible for the bounty? Could it have been intended for Tony Stark and Pepper Potts specifically and not their Iron Man and Rescue hero identities? Someone who held a grudge against Tony for something other than busting their ass for committing crimes? Someone who then put out a hit on him and his redhead to all of their supervillain enemies in order to completely destroy them? She even remembered now, from the footage Fury had shown her of Tony killing Rhona, the goth girl telling Tony that the highest price was on her head, most likely to increase the likelihood that she would be targeted first and that Tony would be left to mourn over her death until they finally came for him and collected the price on his head.

Who was it? Who could it be?

At that moment, the computer alerted Pepper to the fact that the test results were done, and she moved closer to the holographic screen, her arms uncrossing as she did so.

"Well, I'll be," Pepper said, a frown on her face while she stared at the results of the quick analysis she had done on the mutated bird feathers. "This… this can't be right."

"What can't be right?" Gene asked as he too stared at the large screens from behind her standing form. "Did you find what you were looking for? Can we go now?"

"In a minute," she replied before her fingers hit the keyboard and she began digging deeper than she knew she had time for. "I just want to double-check something and we can go."

"Two minutes, Pepper," Gene said to her with a stern voice, the chills on his skin increasing with every second that passed by. "Two more minutes and I'm teleporting us back to S.H.I.E.L.D. whether you're ready for it or not. This is not what you told me we would be doing here. They're gonna find us out."

"Yes, I know. We'll leave in two minutes but… huh. Well, that's… odd…"

"What's odd?"

"The crows… the birds…" she pointed to the screens. "They're not from the States, or this continent for that matter. They're from…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Europe?" Tony asked and stood up from his chair. "What is my son doing in Europe? Are you sure he's there?"

"Tony, trust me. He's there…He…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Europe? What were European birds doing in my apartment?"

"Pepper," Gene swallowed hard and began shaking. The energy that was now surrounding them had finally been recognized by his senses. He did not know who or what it was, but he now definitely remembered when and where he had felt this way before, years ago. "I think… I-I really think we should…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Which part of Europe, Maya?"

Maya pursed her lips and gulped, prompting the blue-eyed boy to ask his question one more time.

"Maya, _where_ in Europe is my son?"

xxxXXXxxx

Then, just like that, it finally dawned on him and her, what was truly happening as they stared at the blinking red dot on the map – the only location where these types of birds originated from. Pepper felt the blood in her entire body rush to her feet, draining any color from her face. Gene's mouth hung. Finally, and for the first time since Nick Fury had showed up at his home in China to request his help, he understood why the man had been ready to do anything to get him to hide Pepper and Tony from the world.

"No," Pepper whispered, her right hand suddenly landing on her mouth, wanting to deny the evidence before her. "No, it… this can't be true…"

But it was. It _was_ true. No matter how much she or Gene wanted it to be a lie.

And now, as she started to piece together all the clues their enemy had inadvertently left behind, the clues her own son had given them throughout the few months he had been in their lives, she felt as if the world was turning too fast for her taste. How could she have been so blind? She was recon – she should have known!

"He warned us…" she shook her head, closed her eyes and began pacing the room. "Jimmy, he… he…"

They had thought, all this time, that the only five words that baby James had known and uttered around them were four names and one random word. A word she and Tony had assumed had meant something else. But now, as the computer's analysis of the crow samples revealed where Maya had really been all this time, the puzzle pieces were finally in place, and Pepper realized the truth that had been in front of them all along.

It had not been four names and one random word; it had been _five_ names.

He, James Howard Stark, had told his parents what he saw, what he heard, WHO he saw… he had told them by crying for hours nonstop; by pointing and staring at something only he could see; by uttering the one word that most closely resembled the intruder's name. The name of the man who had placed the bounty on them. The name of the man that had haunted their home.

"Boom," was all that Pepper said before she heard Gene scream her name at the top of his lungs.

xxxXXXxxx

"What?" Tony felt himself lose control of his own body and almost collapsed on the floor. "Can you… did you… did you just say 'Latveria'?"

"Yes."

"What… what is my son doing in Latveria?"

"What do you think?" Maya replied, almost regretting telling Tony the truth and knowing that Nick Fury was going to throw a fit for it.

"But-but… but how… does _he_… how does _he_ know…"

"He knows _everything_. You know that already. And that's why you need to stay away from the armory. Because he _knows_ about the armory and that's the first place he'd look for you if he received any indication that you came back to life. Any use of the systems at the temple would be an instant red flag to him."

Tony's eyes widened and he felt the air leave his lungs. He stared at the clock, which showed him that two hours had gone by since he had last seen Pepper, and he asked the only question that came to his mind even though he knew what the answer was going to be.

"How does he know? How does he know about the temple? About what's hidden there?"

"Because I told him," Maya replied without missing a beat. "Because I told him that it is Iron Man's base of operations."

Whatever retort Tony was going to give was silenced by the alarms in the facility suddenly going off. The lights turned red and began blinking, the sirens came to life, and a pre-recorded female voice blasted from the speakers in the building, urging the inhabitants to seek shelter in the lowest level of the underground facility, and before Tony was able to fully process what these signs meant for him and his redhead, he saw Fury slam the door open and head his way at a quickened pace.

"Stark!" Nick Fury yelled from halfway to where Tony stood in an almost catatonic state, but the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. did not continue his statement until he was close enough to the inventor for his voice to carry over the sound of the blaring alarms.

"It's your lab: your lab just blew up!"

* * *

**A/N: **Told ya there would be a lot of answers in this chapter. Although I didn't come right out and say it, I made it pretty clear who it is that is out to get Tony and Pepper. Yeah, _that's_ how bad things are about to get. But, these were only half of the big answers. The rest of them will be revealed in the next chapter. Now let me know with an awesome review how much you love this, so that I can finish the next one that much sooner!


	3. Chapter 2

**Guest Review Responses**

**Iron kid: This was a great chapter and I can not wait to see more so please update this as quickly as u can it is killing me wait for the next chapter **– Hello, _Iron kid_! Here's the mother of all updates. This chapter will probably be the longest of all in this story. Not by much, just a thousand words or so, but it was so needed to get the point across.

**faithful reader: so heart attack has been added to the list. but on another note boomdoom who would have guessed also the hell happend to pepper **– How about we add strokes, too? Uncontrollable sobbing ranks up there, as well as hyperventilating and screaming at the top of your lungs. Make sure you're in a place where you can scream to your heart's content. Pepper's whereabouts are going to be the least important part of all this :P

**Guest: You know what? You created a plot that is easily far better than the plot of the show. Always unpredictable. I give up. Just kill them all. somehow kill Rhodey. Turn howie into the mandrin. Turn Pepper into a maklun ( like you did with that avengers fic.) Turn fury into the red skull. YOU CAN NOT SURPRISE ME ANYMORE. I WON'T LET YOUUUUUUUU. **– CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! I WILL SURPRISE YOU! MUAHAHAHAHA!

**apps: OMGGGG...you came up with an update!...this is something out of the blue...beyond my expectations... Shocked/surprised to see you... This time I must say I became stalker of yours by keeping an eye on frequent updates of your Arrow fanfic keeping you occupied from updating the last chronicles...can't resist...he he he:)..:)..)...superb revelation of (D)Boom behind all this...AnnnnDdddd...I know she is alive!...he he he...:)...so happy to see you...once again Welcome back...cheers! **– Stalking is good. It keeps me writing and thinking about the weirdest plotlines ever. And your and everyone else's reviews make my day; ya'll have no idea how much they DO brighten my dull days! Yes, I said ya'll, 'cuz I live in Texas and that's how we all talk 'round here. Thank you for coming back for more!

**A/N:** OK, my Faithful Readers, here we are with the next chapter to this story. Like I said in the last chapter, while that one had a lot of big reveals, the rest of the really big answers are found in this chapter. While there are still some questions to be answered in future chapters, the ones that you'll finally get here are going to knock your socks off. How shocking can they be, you ask? I've got two words for everyone: buckle up!

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Stark!" Fury raised his voice and almost physically shook the inventor back to reality. "Stark, are you listening to me? _Stark!_ Dammit! Hansen, get him out of here!"

Tony's eyes blinked a few times and he shook his head to regain his senses before his focus slowly returned to him. He had no idea why everything and everyone was on high alert, and he had the slight suspicion that he should have been worried about it as much as Maya and Nick appeared to be, but he could not bring himself to care about that at the moment. All he wanted right now was to do something – anything – to know if Pepper and Gene had made it out of the lab before it had blown up.

_Did she forget the sequence?_ He asked as he cursed himself for not forcing Pepper to go through the order of the steps more than one time. _She made most of the steps… She… It's been hours! It can't… She couldn't have triggered the alarms after that many hours! She has to be alive!_

"Tony, we have to go," Maya began pulling the inventor by his left hand with her towards the laboratory exit Nick Fury had just gone through. "Tony, snap out of it! We're under attack!"

"W-what?" his thoughts and feelings were with Pepper; his current predicament was almost inconsequential to him. His mind was racing, listing and categorizing what he needed to do next. He needed to find a way to get in touch with Pepper, a way to at least see the present status of the Makluan Temple. Perhaps the computers in Maya's lab could be used to hack the satellites? Perhaps the Stark 1 satellite had also been reactivated along with the systems at the temple and he could use it to communicate with his redhead? Perhaps it was just a false alarm; a ruse, something that Pepper had deliberately done to distract S.H.I.E.L.D. and bust him out of the prison he was currently in.

"Tony? TONY! Are you even listening? We're under attack!" Maya repeated in a frustrated voice, utterly unaware of the excruciating deliberation taking place inside Tony's brain. "Don't you hear all the alarms? The island is probably being bombed! We need to go to level B30, right now."

_B30? Bombed? Island?_

More details of the location were revealed.

Tony shook his head again, unsure about how to interpret the new information. In the span of half a second, it was now even more possible that it _was_ Pepper who was targeting the location as a means to get him back to the outside world. Had Pepper been able to get more than just one favor out of the Mandarin? Was Gene part of this crazy idea? Was Pepper plotting to get Tony back by any means possible? And, more importantly, assuming she was still alive: had she discovered something so shocking that she had been left with no choice but to take extreme measures such as these?

_Dammit! I need more information!_

"TONY! HURRY!"

Jumping back to reality, and with a half-assed plan in mind, he finally decided to pull his hand from Maya's, if just to buy him some time. He stopped dead in his tracks, which caused her to halt as well and for him to realize they had traveled quite the distance in such a short time. He then walked around her to stand before the confused brunette and extended his arms to the sides to block her path.

"What the FUCK is going on?"

"There's no time to explain, Tony," Maya replied with a stomp of her right foot, walked around him and under his still extended left arm and then resumed her quickened pace, urging him to follow her with an insistent wave of her hands. "We have to hurry up before B30 is closed."

"Closed? Why would it close? I don't understand what's happening!"

"I'll explain later, OK? I promise. Now come on, Tony!"

The woman grabbed his hand again, this time tighter than before, and together they began to jog towards the nearest emergency exit that would lead them to the stairs. The red, blinking lights and loud sirens failed to dissipate, and the pleasant female voice that had once before asked the residents of the facility to descend to Level 30 as quickly as possible was now simply counting down the seconds before said level was sealed until further notice.

"We have less than two minutes left to make it there and we're ten levels away. We need to run!"

"Down _ten _flights of stairs?" Tony asked, his eyes briefly looking over his shoulder to see how far away from the lab they were.

"Yes."

"Can't we take the elevator?"

Maya shook her head. "They're sealed now, just like the emergency doors will be once we cross them or if we don't hurry up and go through them in the next thirty seconds. There's no coming back to the hall anymore once we go through the doors."

"So, anyone who is left on this side of the door is screwed?"

"Pretty much," Maya said before their run turned into a full sprint when she finally saw an emergency door, Tony still trailing behind her.

"What about Pepper?" he dared to ask even though he was aware that the ginger could very well be permanently down for the count, but refusing to believe this was the case until he saw it with his own eyes. "Who's gonna go get her?"

"She'll be there, don't worry," Maya assured him, still under the belief that Gene Khan was keeping an eye on her former friend. "Basement 30 is the safest level in this place, so everyone here has to be moved there in case of an emergency or a lockdown. She's probably already there."

"You sure about that?" the inventor asked, gaging how much knowledge regarding Pepper's actual whereabouts had spread, if any or at all.

"Yes, and she's probably wondering where the hell _you_ are," Maya responded as they both stopped in front of the emergency exit she had previously spotted and she began using the keypad on the side of the door to input the override code. The paging system reminded them both that time was of the essence, yet Maya hesitated to continue putting in the override code for a second. Tony eyed her with wonder, fearing she had somehow figured out what he planned to do, but when her eyes appeared to be briefly lost in an invisible horizon, Tony inwardly sighed in relief.

"He wasn't supposed to start yet," Maya stated more to herself than to Tony as the door finally unlocked and Tony pushed it open. In spite of the loud noises and flickering lights, the scientist heard her words loud and clear, as well identified her tone of escalating culpability.

"Start, what?" Tony asked as he used his free hand to press her lower back to lead her inside the emergency stairwell hall, but he remained standing by the exit.

"Taking over," Maya retorted once she had crossed the threshold and her eyes stared over and down the rail to see other people rushing down the stairs.

"Taking over _what_?"

"Everything," she inhaled shakily and then turned around in place to face him. "And if your lab really exploded, that can only mean that –"

"Pepper's gone," Tony said unexpectedly, causing Maya's eyes to narrow for an instant, momentarily perplexed as to why Tony was suddenly stating these words.

"What?"

"She's not here," he said and took an inconspicuous small step back from her. "She went to the Makluan Temple, with Gene. They left hours ago."

"What? No! That's… that's impossible. Gene was told not to take her out!"

"By who?"

"Fury! It was a direct order!"

Tony snickered at the response and shook his head. "Gene, he… as powerful as he is, he has the same weakness as me."

"Weakness? What weakness?"

Tony briefly closed his eyes, took another step back, and then smiled sympathetically at the confounded brunette.

"Pepper," he finally replied. "It's the one thing he and I truly have in common: we'd do anything for her."

And before Maya could piece together what the inventor had meant and what he was about to do, the emergency exit slammed in her face, leaving the angry woman fiercely pounding her fists against the metal contraption to no avail as a loud boom that shook the entire underground building made everything go dark.

xxxXXXxxx

_Maya Hansen walked slowly towards the main chamber of the castle she had called home for several months now, wondering if the feeling in her chest was what death-row inmates felt on their way to the execution room. She had not wanted to be here in the first place, let alone be part of this large scheme for world domination and for imposing revenge onto Tony Stark, but as crappy news reporters and lazy writers liked to say: one thing had led to another, and now here she was._

_ She stood outside the large, heavy wooden doors, knocked three times to announce her arrival, and when she did not hear him tell her to let him be, she knew he was ready to see her, so she let herself in. He was anxious, of this much she was sure, that the news she brought with herself was exactly what he wanted to hear. It was not news she wanted him to know or relay to him, but after your mother is killed due to your poor involvement in a madman's crusade, there was little you could do to back out of what you had already agreed to do – what you had already done._

_ "Lord Doom: thank you for receiving me," she said in a timid voice, crestfallen and down on one knee. She knew the pose should have made her feel like a medieval knight, presenting his honorable homecoming to his kingdom and ruler, but this was far from being a fairytale or a mutually beneficial pact._

_ "Do not bother with the pleasantries. Doom's time is limited. State your business and return to your quarters to continue your work."_

_ "Yes, my Lord," Maya replied even though the respect she showed the man was neither felt nor earned. Only Killian was allowed to call him 'Doctor,' perhaps due to the fact that they both shared the title. But from the moment she had set foot in his realm, Maya had been instructed to refer to him as 'Lord,' since she was nothing more than a lowly peasant who was yet to prove her knowledge and value to the world._

"_I've come to confirm that the rumors are true: Tony Stark and Pepper Potts have a son."_

_ "It is of no surprise to me," Doom stated. "The Erwin girl failed to fulfill the bounty… just like all the others before her._

_ "Indeed," Maya agreed with a nod, not wanting to remember yet again that she was responsible for Tony's behavior that day he had encountered the deranged woman, just as Tony's son was being born. "I've also confirmed their new living location. They're hosted in what used to be Hammer Multinational, in its penthouse."_

_ "A structure with poor security measures."_

_ "Tony's taking care of that."_

_ Doom scoffed. "He's but a child. His technological advancements are insignificant to Doom."_

_ "And yet you want him for his Extremis," Maya said before she could hold back her tongue. "You can't replicate what he's got."_

_ Before she could continue her statements of truth, Doom leapt from his throne, charged towards her and held her by her neck, squeezing it as hard as was needed to restrain her breathing, yet not strong enough to kill her. She felt some of the blood vessels in her eyes pop with the pressure around her windpipe, and while she tried to scratch herself out of his grip, nothing she did had an impact on Doom's grasp._

_ "He was lucky; a mere amateur. He did not plan to obtain that ability! Tony Stark's advantages are minimal at best! And you," he squeezed a tad tighter, "you will be reminded of your place."_

_ And for weeks after that incident, after briefly forgetting that Doom held her life in his hands and then being reminded of such by being tortured for days, Maya Hansen wore a metal shock collar around her neck that even Aldrich Killian was allowed to play around with._

xxxXXXxxx

"Scanners… trouble… no trace…"

"Buried… rubble…"

"Gone…"

The multitude of overlapping voices and sounds overwhelmed his senses, and it did not help much either that even though he could somewhat feel the computers nearby, it was not at a level he could have benefited from. He was having a difficult time reading them, interacting with them, but he could do so enough to know that the attack had stopped – at least for now.

"Pepper," he uttered louder than his ears could register, and a moment after he had asked for his wife and had begun patting around himself, he felt a pair of arms surround him, help him up and straighten his head.

"Tony… coming to…"

The sentences spoken near him sounded broken, almost nonsensical, but he could infer the rest of the words his ears refused to hear. He was not certain why he was struggling to find his balance and focusing his eyesight, or why his skin tingled as if his entire body had gone numb, but he was at least encouraged by the notion that the words coming out of him were clear as day.

"Pepper," he said again and blinked multiple times. "Where… is she…" he added, expecting to hear that somehow his redhead had made it back even though he had never made it to Maya Hansen's lab after he had closed the emergency door on her.

"We don't know," the person holding him responded, his gruff voice beginning to sound vaguely familiar to the inventor. "I looked everywhere for her, but I couldn't find her in the building. Not her or Gene Khan."

Tony felt his hopes dissipating at a rapid pace at knowing that if Gene had not been able to get them back by now, the chances that they had survived were almost nil.

"She left… hours ago," Tony stated. "With Gene… the temple… she's there…"

All of a sudden, and after Tony's confession, the voices around him simply stopped, and all that Tony could hear was the beeping of the machines in the room. He felt some of his strength return to him, and after he patted his thanks to what he assumed was the Good Samaritan's shoulder, he pulled away from whoever had been supporting his weight. He began rubbing his eyes as he continued to speak and stand up from the floor, completely unaware that every soul in the room was staring at him.

"She went there… to reboot the servers…" he cleared his throat, slowly becoming more and more aware of his surroundings and more and more in control of his own body. "The computers, they needed direct input of our biometrics… we couldn't reboot anything from here."

Tony missed the moment that the panicked look on Nick Fury's face rapidly spread to everyone in the emergency control room. Nick Fury closed his eye and shook his head, feeling the weight of the failure he had allowed to take place almost crush him to dust. He should have known better than to leave Gene Khan alone with the ginger. He should have known better than to think that Gene would not let his feelings for the redhead cloud his head.

"I-I have to go get her…" Tony said once he was finally able to focus his vision and realized where he was and who was with him. "I have to go or Doom… Doom will…"

"You can't, Tony," the voice of the man that had assisted him just seconds ago, said to him. "The power is out. We're running on damaged backup generators. We can barely keep the oxygen flow working, let alone open the doors or get out."

The scientist slowly turned around to face the owner of the voice that had just relayed the first wave of grim news to him, and his jaw almost dropped at whom he saw standing before him.

"Parks? Arthur Parks?"

The Living Laser nodded and smiled.

"Sorry about the hangover," Arthur said with a slight shrug. "Being converted into energy, even temporarily, and traveling through the power lines is very uncomfortable for someone who's not like me."

"W-What?"

"Power lines," Black Widow said as she closed in towards Tony, who only now noticed that Maya Hansen was passed out on the floor and was being tended to by Hawkeye. "When the power went out, all the doors were locked shut. Arthur began going through the electric sockets all over the building, bringing here everyone and anyone who got trapped. If it wasn't for him, most of us wouldn't be here right now."

The scientist returned his gaze to the man he had for such a long time remembered with remorse at recognizing he had been unable to return him to normal, and he then hung his head in deep thought. He had never been able to fix the Living Laser, and he had loathed himself for that, but he now somewhat realized why life had not allowed him the chance to do so. Arthur Parks was who he needed to be: power on-the-go – and had he not been who he was, the blue-eyed inventor would perhaps not be alive at the moment.

"Thank you," Tony said earnestly, and not only for himself, but also for Arthur's attempts to locate his redhead even though she was nowhere in the structure to be found. "Thank you for that, Arthur. But now I have to –"

Tony's words were interrupted by a sight that caught his attention once he turned around to face Fury and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. – a sight that led his eyes to look past the men and women before him to the wall of screens at the end of the surveillance room. A sight that made him feel as if he had been punched in the gut.

"No," the blue-eyed boy exhaled before he rushed towards the screens. "NO!"

The images were quickly rotating; alternatingly displaying different locations around the world – cities and continents alike. Yet, a common theme was palpable in all of the feeds regardless of their position on the globe: chaos, destruction and death.

From his hometown to the other side of the Earth, major cities had been bombarded in a clear attempt to incapacitate them and cut communication between them. Images of people injured, crying, running down the streets, bleeding and screaming the names of their loved ones, was all he could see. He could not believe the amount of devastation that had taken place in such a short amount of time. He could not make his brain accept what his eyes were seeing unravel right in front of him.

_My family_, _my friends…all those innocent people…_ Tony thought as he placed his hands on the dashboard of the machines. His range of Extremis was limited for now until he was able to fully unlock it, but the closer he was to a computer, the more control he felt he could have on it. His palms pressed against the switchboard, his eyes closed in concentration, and seconds later the screens finally shifted to showing the landmarks that were dear to him. He almost did not open his eyes again, fearing and already knowing what he would see, but the reality was that curling into a ball and denying the truth was not going to make it go away.

_No_, Tony thought as his now opened eyes filled with tears.

Stark Tower, Stark Solutions, the Rhodes' former home… everything was gone. Flattened. Wiped out of existence. Nothing but rubble was left, and he was more than sure that those majestic skyscrapers were now the tomb for anyone who had been caught inside.

_"Buried… rubble… gone…"_

The words he had heard minutes ago, when he had just woken up, now made perfect sense to him; too much sense, in fact. But none of the sense in the world, none of the experience he had picked up from years of the vigilante life, prepared him for the state of the last location he pulled up from the satellite imagery.

"Pepper," his broken voice was painful for almost everyone watching his soul tear apart at seeing the Makluan Temple take over every single inch of all forty, stacked and consecutive widescreens on the wall. Seeing the lab on one screen had not been enough, so he blew up the looping video recording to be split amongst them all, and with all the clarity of the high-tech found in this underground facility, he was able to see the last few moments before his second home had ceased to exist…

…and had more than likely taken the love of his life along with it.

"NOOO!"

The recording was only three seconds in duration, but for Tony, it was three seconds too long. The first frame showed the temple, standing in all its glory, completely defenseless against the missiles that could be barely seen in the corner of the image. The second frame showed the explosion of it, a cloud of dust, ashes and fire being all that took up the screen; and the third frame, the one that that made him clench his eyes and emit a painful-sounding, guttural noise, showed the miles-wide crater that had once hosted the base of operations for Iron Man.

And just when Nick thought things could not get any worse, just when he thought they had hit the lowest level of hell, all the screens went black, one by one. The lights then turned off, the servers shut down, and Maria Hill's voice stating that the satellites had been lost was all the heads-up he needed to realize that Doom's war, what he and S.H.I.E.L.D. had tried for years to prevent, had finally begun.

xxxXXXxxx

"_Tony, stop blaming yourself," Pepper sternly ordered him. "Stop wasting time. We need to get our act together and fight back."_

_ "How?" Tony asked, his eyes still and staring at the images of their son playing on the projector's screen. "We've got nothing, Pepper. They won't let us use this lab or any lab around here. They know better than to let us near any tech… and with Maya and Gene monitoring us…"_

_ "Exactly," the redhead said with a curt nod. "If they don't know we're near a lab, there's nothing they can do about it, right? And Maya doesn't know as much about our lab as she thinks she does, otherwise, she would've realized it can't be restarted from over here."_

_ "What are you saying?"_

_ "That Gene owes us a fucking favor," she said as she took a step back from her husband and walked around the table of bird samples to pick the less inconspicuously placed one. "And I know exactly what it's gonna be."_

_ Tony opened his mouth to ask what crazy idea was crossing her mind, but when he saw her grab a feather sample, put it inside a small plastic bag and then shoved the bag inside her blouse, in her bra, his eyes widened even more._

_ "You're joking."_

_ "No," she shook her head. "I'm as serious as I can ever be."_

"_So…"_

"_So, this is the plan: I'll tell them I'm tired and that I'm going back to our room to rest. You're gonna tell them that you're going to start rebooting the servers while I nap."_

"_Which we can't do from here."_

"_Exactly. Just tell them that it'll take a while so that they're distracted with you doing that. Meanwhile, I'll have Gene teleport us to the temple. I'll reboot the systems, analyze this sample, and then use it to find out where Maya has been, and hopefully that'll tell us where Jimmy is being kept. Plus, we'll also have our tech to go get him, so we can blow this joint!"_

_Tony stared at her face, noting how confident she appeared to be with her plan, and he wanted more than anything than to share her enthusiasm. This was not the first or last time that she would come up with a plan when had nothing to offer, and this would not be the first time or last either that she would put herself in a situation he would rather her not be in. Nevertheless, if there was something that time had proven to him, over and over again, was that his redhead deserved and had __**earned**__ the right to be treated as the hero he used to be._

"_Are you sure about this, Pep?" he asked her while he rounded the table and stood before her. "Do you think he'll agree to it?"_

"_He'd better" she replied with a smile and a shake of her right fist. "I'll make him agree to it. It's the least he can do for us."_

_Tony exhaled sharply, aimed his head towards the ceiling with closed eyes, and when he finally looked back down to stare at her, he reluctantly nodded his head in agreement with her idea._

"_Fine, but you better take care of yourself, Pep. I didn't just get you back to lose you again."_

"_Same to you," she poked his chest. "I didn't put up with your ass for years, just so that Maya Hansen can steal you back."_

"_Ugh," Tony sounded disgusted by the insinuation. "I'd rather take my chances with Rhona Erwin first, before I take Maya back. And Rhona's __**dead**__!"_

_Pepper chuckled despite how morbid Tony's comment had been, shook her head at him and then stood on her tiptoes to kiss the inventor on the lips. _

"_I love you, Tony. I'll be back before you know it. And once I do, we're gonna kick some ass."_

"_I know. And we'll get through this, Pep. We'll get our son back."_

_Pepper smiled at him once more and before the rattling of the doors turned into their opening, Tony hugged her one more time, fervently kissed the junction of her neck and left shoulder and then whispered to her how much he loved her. _

"_Be safe, babe."_

_All she did was wink and nod._

xxxXXXxxx

The scientist was not sure how long it had been since the blackout had started as he had lost track of reality a while ago. Even though only a few seconds had gone by, to Tony it felt as if the world had suddenly stopped. After the room had gone dark, he had fallen to his knees, held his weight against the dashboard that was now useless, and had closed his eyes so that his mind could replay the last few moments he had spent with his wife, and there he still was. Just as the footage of the absolute destruction of the Makluan Temple, her words and her face looped continuously inside his head, causing even more pain and even more feelings of misery that he believed he without a doubt deserved.

_This can't be happening_, he told himself for the millionth time. _She has to be alive! She… she __**has**__ to have survived that!_

He was not sure how or why the ginger would be entitled to survive what had managed to practically extinguish most of the major cities on Earth, but in his denial and shock, his logical side was having a difficult time speaking louder than his broken heart.

_Because I love her, that's why. Because I need her._ _I have to go find her. I have to do something! I have to do something right now!_

"Stark! For fuck's sake, get it together! We need you sober!"

Fury's words sounded fairly distant to Tony, but apparently not distant enough to not interrupt his mental quarrel with himself. He gulped down the knot in his throat, blinked away some of the tears that continued to form at thinking about his possibly departed wife, and before Fury decided to shake his shoulder one more time, the inventor looked up to glare at the one-eyed man.

"Get out of my way," Tony ordered, stood up from the floor, and pushed the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. to the side.

"'Bout time! We need your brain," Fury replied and handed Tony a screwdriver that the inventor refused to grab and simply stared at it in disdain. "We got the lights back on, but Parks can only keep them going for a few minutes. We need you to fix whatever caused the power failure so that we can get back online."

"With a screwdriver? Really?" Tony scoffed and continued walking past Fury to the circuit box by the corner of the room. "You think I'm a fucking amateur, wanting to get electrocuted by putting a screwdriver inside a socket? Or do you think I'm a failed mechanic?"

"I think you're an inventor who can play electrician," Fury shook the tool towards a retreating Tony, "so invent some goddamned light!"

"Shut up: I'm thinking," Tony responded and opened the circuit box. He quickly assessed the status of the breakers, and after determining that they were not the cause of the blackout and that he probably would need to get to the source of electric current himself, he turned around to stare at a now recovering Maya Hansen.

"Turn it on," Tony ordered and walked over to where Maya lay on the floor. "Turn it on. _Now_."

"What's he talking about?" Hawkeye inquired with knitted brows, yet no one dared to take a guess as to what the blue-eyed boy had meant to say. Luckily for Tony, not everyone had to speculate.

"Tony, if we fully turn Extremis on in you, Doom will know you're alive," Maya tried to reason with her former fiancée while Hawkeye helped her stand up. "He'll know _where_ we are."

"So, what?" Tony narrowed his eyes and folded his arms over his chest in a defiant pose. "He must know I'm alive already, if he bombed the temple. All thanks to you, by the way. You told him where the temple was."

"He would've found out anyway," Maya defended herself. "He visited your penthouse a million times. He kept an eye on you. All the time."

"What?" Tony's livid tone of voice could have slit open her throat. "He came to _my_ home?"

Realizing that she had said more than she should have done at this point in time, but also knowing that there was no taking it back, she was left with no option but to use facts to make Tony understand the gravity of the situation at hand.

"He's the one who attacked Pepper. He's the one that broke into your house when she was alone that night. Both nights. Many nights, actually. But most especially, the nights when Pepper was alone – and the night your son escaped his crib."

Tony's arms slowly fell to his sides and his hands clenched into angry fists, a quick yet almost crippling memory returning to him.

_He waited again for any indication of the intruder's unrelenting presence as the storm's rage outside persevered and the ROI continued to switch views of the spectrum. His calculating mind repeated the scene again and again, trying his best to remember which view the ROI had been on that had allowed him to see the shadowy figure behind them. He knew it had occurred at the end of one five-second interval and the beginning of the next but for the life of him he could not recall which view was listed on the tiny screen of the ROI._

_Or at least not until he saw it once more. _

_Just as before, it caught him by surprise, and before he could read the name of the spectrum view at hand, the ROI flew away from his face and broke into a dozen pieces on the hard ground. Instinctively, Tony's right hand aimed towards the lab and in a second an armored gauntlet covered his entire right arm. He aimed it towards the last place he had seen the figure and for the first time in months the armored hero nature fully kicked into gear._

"_Who are you?" He yelled and held his son closer to him with his left arm. "Show yourself! How did you get in here?"_

"Doom was in my home, around my kid AND my wife? He-he… he was the one who almost broke Pepper's back?!"

Maya opened her mouth to retort, but she almost immediately realized that Tony's questions were rhetorical. There was more to explain to him – more that he needed to know, but for now all she really wanted him to recognize was that Doom had the upper hand.

"Please, Tony," Maya walked over to him. "Please, help us. We can still save your son. We can still fix this. The world hasn't ended. Not yet."

"For me it has," Tony stared away from her face to look at the still black screens, as if the video of the Makluan Temple was still playing, nonstop. Pepper's illness. The jet exploding. The weeks in a coma. The revelation of their son still being alive. The plan to find out what S.H.I.E.L.D. was keeping from them. It all seemed to have happened both so slowly and so fast.

"She's…" he gulped, finally dawning on him that his hope that she had escaped was futile. "She's gone. I can't do this alone now. Not like this. I need her."

Maya hung her head and closed her eyes; bottomless shame and guilt at long last catching up to her. From all the times she had ever wished that Pepper was not near Tony, not around for him to love, this was not one of the ways she had wanted it: by her disappearing from the map.

"I'm sorry…" she uttered in a soft voice. "About Pepper… about everything… but… we still have to do something. You can't just give up now. She'd want you to save him. She'd want you to save your son."

"And she'd want me to kill you, too," he deadpanned with a cynical snicker. "Should I do that, as well?"

"When it's over…" she said without missing a beat, her eyes directly on his unforgiving ones. "When your son is back, and when you're ready… you can take my life. I deserve it."

Tony open his mouth to reply – to assure the brunette that he wholeheartedly agreed with her statement and that he would unquestionably carry out said deed, but before he could get a word out; before he could spit out his venomous anger towards her, a giant ball of light appeared behind him and it made everyone stop in their tracks.

xxxXXXxxx

_"Boom."_

_ "PEPPER!"_

_ The mention of her name in such a desperate tone made her turn away from the computer screens to face Gene standing behind her, a look of pure fear plastered all over his face as his left hand grabbed onto her right one._

_ "It's him, Pepper! He's found us!"_

_**"Perimeter breach,"**__ the AI suddenly said, causing both Gene and Pepper to freeze where they stood and for the next five seconds to move in slow motion. They both looked up towards the ceiling as if the AI would understand by their gesture that they wanted her to continue speaking, and to their luck, it did. _

"_**Target lock detected. Estimating potential damage: damage absolute. Starting **__Clean Slate__** protocol."**_

"_Shit!" Gene heard the redhead hiss under her breath and, a blink of an eye later, she was running away from him and towards the opposite side of the temple._

"_Pepper! Where are you going? We need to get out of here!"_

_ "Not yet!" Pepper replied before she stood in front of the back wall and began trying to pull loose a brick from its place._

_ "Pepper!" Gene began running toward her, his rings already showing and his armor starting to appear. "Grab on to me!"_

_ "Come on," Pepper mumbled while she struggled to pull the brick off the wall to grab the USB drive hidden behind it, Gene's words not getting through to her. "Piece of crap! Come off already… YES! I got it!"_

_ "NO!"_

_ Gene's warning word came too late, she realized, when she turned around to face him, extended her arm towards him, but instead ended up being pushed back by the explosion inside the lab._

xxxXXXxxx

The brightness was short-lived but extreme, and the painful-sounding thud that followed the dissipating flash of light left behind two figures lying on the ground: Gene Khan and Pepper Potts.

"No. Way," Hawkeye blurted. "Holy shit! It's them! They made it!"

Silent yet quickly, the blue-eyed scientist was the first one on his knees on the floor, his hands moving hesitatingly over the barely visible redhead that was currently pinioned under a passed out Gene. The brief second it had taken for the duo to appear out of thin air had been enough for the Mandarin, still in full armor, to land over Pepper, knock the air out of her and make her hit the back of her head against the concrete floor. A nanosecond later, the armor was gone and the status of Gene's intense injuries became open for everyone to see.

"Gene…" Pepper's strained voice being hardly audible under the weight of Gene Khan's body, alarmed them all. "Help h-him…"

"Pepper," Tony whispered and tentatively ran his hand over the top of her head – which was barely visible under Gene – only for it to immediately be stained with blood. "Oh, shit! Oh, _shit_! It's… it's me: Tony. Baby, please, just... Honey… Pep, just… talk to me."

Another agonizing groan was all the response the redhead gave the inventor.

"Oh, no," Maria Hill whispered when she saw the quickly pooling blood by Tony's knees. "We need a medic here, now!"

"Get Parks back here!" Nick Fury ordered and joined the group in the middle of the room. "And someone get the flashlights and the first aid kit!"

"Don't move them yet," Maya said, now standing on the other side of where Tony's form still shook in uncertainty. His eyes traveled up and down both bodies, taking in the obviously large amount of physical damage they sported, and he felt as if it was his own blood that was rushing out of his body and onto the ground. His worry, he realized with grudging surprise, was not only for Pepper, but also for Gene.

"The blood!" Tony said and had to hold back the temptation to move them and locate the wound that was causing copious damage. "There's so. Much. Blood!"

"Arthur, get in the scanner," Maya said and, an instant later, the Living Laser – regardless of how drained he felt, powered on the portable x-ray machine Maya held in her hands. The brunette made two complete passes of the machine on Gene's body, making sure she got every part of him, and after the machine cleared him of any broken bones, she kneeled down before them.

"Get him off her."

Tony wasted no time in doing just that, but he also had the decency of unquestioningly doing so cautiously and with the respect he knew Gene merited. Even if the two men would never again see eye-to-eye, and even if the woes from the past would never allow them to be the friends they had been once before, they had a mutual understanding that when it came to extreme situations that threatened what they strived to protect and loved, a mutually-beneficial partnership was all but mandatory for them.

"Hang in there, Gene," Tony stated as he pulled back the Mandarin alter-ego's body from Pepper with ease, forgetting for an instant the grudge they both felt for one another. "I still have a bone to pick with you. Don't you dare die on me."

"We're gonna need to suture his wounds, _fast_," Maria stated when she began to examine his injuries. "There's a large piece of glass sticking out of his abdomen."

"Is he gonna make it?" Tony asked when he stared down at his shirt and arms and realized with distress that he was covered in Gene's blood. "We don't know how long he's been bleeding."

"We're gonna need to do a transfusion," Maria retorted, her hands quick at work cleaning up and categorizing the lacerations on Gene's body. "Widow, find out what type of blood he has and match it with anyone in here."

"She's clear of broken bones, too," Maya then said and Tony exhaled in relief. He crawled back to where Pepper still lay on the floor, and now that he had the all-clear to move her, he began inspecting her lesions as carefully as he had done so the night before despite the limited field of vision the blackout was causing.

"Pep? Pepper, open your eyes. You're safe. You both made it. I…" he gulped. "I knew you'd make it."

Pepper opened one eye and then grumbled in annoyance when the flashlight Tony was aiming towards her, shone right in her face.

"Sorry!" he quickly apologized but did not stop his search.

She closed her eyes again, cleared her throat and took deep breaths. She gave Tony enough time to finish his probing, knowing he would not listen to anything she had to say until he was certain she was – for the most part – alright, and by the time the room stopped spinning and her lungs stopped burning from the sudden and forced release of oxygen within them, she opened her eyes and once again spoke.

"Tony, is Gene… is he…" her head shifted slightly to her left to see the medical team diligently working on him.

"They're helping him," he said immediately and gently shifted her view from Gene by lightly pulling her face back to him, lifted and placed her head on his lap and then held her right hand in his. "He's gonna be alright. You know he's too stubborn to die like this."

"I should've listened to him," her eyes quickly glistened at the weight of her words, so she closed them shut. "We should've stayed. Or we should've left the temple sooner. I… it's Doom, Tony. Doctor Doom has Jimmy! Doom is behind all of this!"

"I know," Tony nodded and then gently – almost apologetically so – kissed the back of the hand he was still holding, suddenly feeling a crippling load of remorse and guilt hit him from within at remembering that he was yet to inform Pepper of the probable fate of their family and friends. She had just come back from almost being blown to pieces, and she was injured, evidently tired, dirty and perhaps still shaken up from what she and Gene had had to endure, but the fact remained that she had to be told what Doom had accomplished.

"Maya, she told me," Tony continued, attempting to somehow ease her into learning the terrible news. "He's started a war, Pepper. A _world _war. He targeted –"

"The temple," she interrupted and opened her eyes to stare at Tony. "Everything's gone."

"I know. I saw. I thought that you…"

He could not bring himself to even say the words, even if she was right here, alive and with him, fearing that the mere insinuation of what he thought had happened to her would somehow instantly change the outcome of the blast and she would vanish from his arms.

"It was… a close call," she whispered to him and squeezed his hand to comfort him, not seeing any point in denying what they both knew could have occurred. "Gene saved me."

Feeling empowered now that she was back with him, Pepper pushed herself up from his lap. Tony promptly understood what her goal was and he assisted her in sitting up before she hugged him with all her might, glad to be with him again and not caring they were both dirtying and bloodying up the other's clothes. Tony responded to her embrace with one of his own, and for seconds all he focused on was on the heat of her body carrying on to his and the rising and lowering of her chest against his own.

Nonetheless, he knew that he had to tell her what he saw before the satellite reception had been lost. She had every right to know what he was almost certain had taken place outside. He had to tell her what had become of their home and the homes of their loved ones, and what the implications of that destruction meant for their lives.

Then again, perhaps this was not the best time to do so, seeing as she had barely made it out with her life from one of the Doom-incited attacks, but he was also aware that there would never be a good time or place to tell anybody that there was an enormous possibility that everyone they had once known and cared about were more than likely dead, killed by the same madman that had taken their son. He had no option but to move forward with it – telling her the truth, just as they had agreed to do with each other, a long time ago.

"There's more, Pep," he whispered to her and increased the grip around her body, anticipating her reaction to the news. "There's so much more that he did just now. He targeted more than just the Makluan Temple. A _lot_ more."

He felt her body tense at this, and he heard her inhale deeply, as if suddenly realizing what he was trying to say.

"A world war," she repeated his words, closed her eyes and, with that, Tony knew she understood. "You-you mean that he… that he…"

"All of it," Tony closed his eyes as well, dug his face in her neck and exhaled sharply, almost painfully. "Every single place. All of them. I don't know if any of them were in the buildings. I couldn't tell. I'm sorry, Pep. I'm so sorry."

He held some of her sudden deadweight when he heard her whimper and hold back a sob. Even though tears were trailing down his face as well, he did not let her hear him cry and he kept the juddering of his shoulders to a minimum. He rubbed her back up and down with his palms, told her as best as he could without words that he was there for her, and waited patiently for several minutes until her voice returned to her. It was ridiculous to mourn without absolute cause, they both knew, but it was even _more_ ridiculous to cave in now before the real battle was to start.

"I got it, Tony," she whispered after a sniffle. "I brought it back with me."

Tony noticed her abrupt adjustment in demeanor just by the change in her tone of voice, so he pulled back to stare at her face and searched her eyes for a response. She surreptitiously looked behind him and then around them, noticing that no one was particularly paying attention to them at the moment. She then stared back at Tony again, slowly pulled her left arm from around him and stealthily opened her left hand in between their chests. Tony looked down in between their bodies to see the contents of her hand, and when he acknowledged the item with a nod, she closed her hand again and then deposited the portable drive inside her bra.

"It's all that's left, and it's not updated. But it should be enough," she said in a soft voice.

"Enough for revenge," Tony whispered back, his eyes on her hazel orbs. "Enough to bring him down."

"And enough to get our son back," Pepper added, her eyes on his electric blue ones that she loved so much. And in the apparent calm she seemed to have at the moment despite the news of their fallen loved ones, her ears listened to what everyone was saying or were trying not to say, her heart beat rapidly at the notion of being in Tony's arms once more, and her mind plotted the many ways Victor von Doom was going to learn what it meant to harm the people she loved.

_Everyone is going to pay. Every single one._

xxxXXXxxx

_ The suits of armor stored above them began exploding, one by one, causing the entire relic of a temple to shake and start to disintegrate to nothing but dust. The computers and servers hummed for the last time before they were short-circuited. The AI announced the successful progression of protocol __**Clean Slate**__ and, a second later, a missile flew right in, separated Gene and Pepper with the power of its flight, and then dug itself deep underground._

_ Debris fell on them from every direction, bruising them and cutting their skin, and the moment before the missile exploded from the ground up, Gene barely had time to use one of his rings to pull back Pepper towards him, enclosing debris within them both, and then only just barely teleported out of the lab before it all turned to ash._

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper sat on the edge of the small bed where Tony laid, his eyes closed and his breathing even, dozed off some time after the IV line attached to the crux of his right elbow had been inserted in him. She ran her left hand over his face and through his hair, both of which were still dusty and bloodied. There had been no rest for him until now since yesterday, and after she and Gene had returned and he had worked with the Living Laser to get the entire B30 level back online, Gene had been ready for the blood transfusion he had needed. Maya had confirmed that Gene and Tony had the same blood type, and that Gene's half-alien genetic material would be expected to flush out any Extremis virus side-effects of the inventor's blood, so Tony had all but taken off his gory shirt and had offered his arm to the brunette.

It turned out that the room that Parks had left Tony and Maya in was not the only one for that floor. There were at least thirty other similar looking rooms throughout the basement, some larger and some smaller, but all connected to a main hall in the center area of the floor. The rooms included medical facilities, showers and bathrooms stalls, a small gym, a couple of fully-stocked kitchens and dining areas, a large weapons repository, and bedrooms filled with stacked bunk beds. The room Arthur had brought the inventor and the botanist to via the electrical sockets was the command center, and he had done so because every other room had already been filled with the other guests of the underground structure – and because Nick Fury had not wanted Tony to know who else was already on site.

Pepper's eyes shifted from staring at her husband to gazing at Gene, lying on the bed next to Tony's, and the guilt returned to her all over again. It did not matter how strong she knew Gene was, or how immortal he always claimed to be. When it came down to facing one of Doctor Doom's plans or antics, nothing one ever knew to be true about themselves made a difference at all. If Doom wanted you dead, you would be dead. The only questions to ask in such a situation were: how long would it take, and how painful would it be.

Despite this fact of life, she knew that he was going to be alright. She knew they were _both_ going to be OK, but she was not sure if their other family members and friends were. The thing she hated more than seeing the people she cared about get hurt was to be the cause of it all. Gene had wanted to stay to watch over her, and then he had wanted them both to leave, and she had scoffed and shrugged him off, twice, and now he had been unconscious for several hours, with no sign of waking up any time soon.

"The rings will take over soon, and finish healing him," Maya's words announced her presence in the medical room before she began removing the IV line from Tony's arm. "He just needed a little boost and the transfusion was just that."

Pepper remained silent, watching Maya as she cleaned and covered Tony's arm with a bandage, returned it to rest on the bed, and then focused her attention on tending to Gene.

"You should both go get cleaned up," Maya said, her back to the redhead. "In about half an hour, you'll get all the answers you've been waiting for."

Pepper was taken aback by the statement but made sure her face remained as stoic as it could be.

"I'd say it's about fucking time, but that's something Tony would say," Pepper casually replied, and Maya simply shrugged.

"It wasn't my call to make, Pepper. Nothing of this was. It's never been my choice. Just like you, I didn't know I was a part of something greater until it hit me right in the face. And by then, all I could do was take it in stride."

Pepper narrowed her eyes at that, intrigued by the possible meaning of her statement, but bit her tongue to keep herself from asking what the true intent of her words had been. She was still more than just pissed off at the girl she had once felt guilty about betraying by sleeping with Tony on the same night of their supposed rushed wedding. At this point, Pepper would rather cut off her own tongue before she gave the woman any indication that she needed her help in any form.

"Where can we clean up? Or is that super-secret information, too?"

"There are some showers over there," Maya pointed to a corner of the medical room. "Spare clean clothes are in the cabinets."

Pepper glanced in the direction Maya was pointing, and before the need to bust open her little dark brown head took over her senses, the redhead gently shook her husband by his shoulders, hoping to get him to regain consciousness.

"Tony? Tony, it's done. Gene's gonna be fine. Tony, wake up."

Tony moaned lightly and his eyes blinked slowly a couple of times to allow them to adjust to the bright light above him. For a moment, he forgot where he was and what he was doing, but when his turned head stared at Maya's back and he then saw the IV line and other medical equipment surrounding him, his brain reconnected with the real world.

"Is that all he needs?" Tony pushed himself up by resting his upper body on his bent elbows and then gave a brief saluting nod to his wife. "Is he going to wake up soon?"

"I estimate that in a couple of hours or so," Maya replied. "But it can also be a few minutes, for all I know. It's hard to tell with him because of his Makluan composition. He's more difficult to predict than your Extremis."

"When will you know for sure that he'll be alright?" Tony inquired and slowly sat on the edge of the bed Pepper had just vacated, giving his body enough time to adjust for the reduced quantity of plasma in his veins.

"When he wakes up," Maya retorted, her back still to them even though she was not doing much doctoring on Gene at this point. "Like I just told your wife, you should go clean up and get ready for Fury's meeting at 1900 hours, sharp."

Pepper and Tony exchanged an apprehensive glance before the inventor stood up from the bed and Pepper surrounded the back of his waist with her left arm. He threw his right arm over her shoulders to help support his wobbly weight, and after his right hand linked with her right one, with slow steps they walked towards the shower room, not once looking back to stare at the shaking brunette, who felt as if the world was about to end. She already knew what Tony and Pepper were about to learn about themselves, and the moment she had most dreaded ever since Aldrich had tricked her into joining his and Doom's cause had finally arrived.

_I'm sorry, Pepper. I'm sorry Tony_, the brunette thought with closed eyes, knowing that there were not enough words in the entire universe to profusely and completely apologize for her actions. That there would also never be enough tears to shed for what she had done, and on top of it all: no way to turn back now.

xxxXXXxxx

_She opened her eyes when she felt something humid graze her face. At first, she thought it might have been her tears, but when she opened her eyes to the absolute darkness surrounding her, she knew that what had woken her up was the least of her concerns. Then, hitting her like an anvil in freefall, Pepper remembered where she had last been… and wondered where she now was._

** Am I dead? Oh, crap! Did I die?! Tony's gonna kill me if I did!**

_ The irony of her worries made her scoff derisively, realizing how anger would be the last feeling Tony would experience if the temple exploding had indeed ended her life. The only anger he would ever feel would be towards himself, at letting her carry out her little plan that was perhaps doomed before it had gotten the chance to start._

_ "Doomed," Pepper said bitterly. "Doctor Doom."_

_ It all came crashing back to her, the feelings of loathing she quickly harbored towards the cruel man that had taken her son away. Technically, it had been Maya who had carried out the deed, but it had been the Doctor himself who had planned it all out, set out the bounty for them, and had made years of their lives be the uncertain torture they had been._

**If I'm not dead, I'll make him pay for it. For all of it!**

_Pepper thoughts of unbound revenge, however, were halted when she remembered she had not been the only one in the temple. She had brought a friend of hers, someone she considered one of her closest friends at that – despite the physical distance that was almost always present between them – and when she tried to move her body to look for him, she became shaken at realizing she was not on the ground._

**I'm floating? Why… how… I'm floating?**

_Yes, she __**had **__to be dead._

_She struggled to find some sort of balance, and as she did so, she felt relieved to somehow see that Gene was also floating nearby. She moved her arms as if she were swimming so she could reach him, and before she knew it she was levitating inches from him. His armor was shining brightly, and so were his rings, but for some odd reason, he was not moving or saying anything at all._

"_Gene?" the redhead shook his armored face. "Gene, can you hear me?"_

_And when her hand reached down to grab his and her fingers brushed the rings, she felt an electric shock run through into her soul, leaving her unconscious for an unknown amount of time._

xxxXXXxxx

A few minutes had been the better estimate, and moments before the meeting was to start, Gene had woken up. It had not taken him long to clean up and find his bearings thanks to the power of the rings in full force, but mostly it had been due to his determination to right the wrongs he had been a witness of.

S.H.I.E.L.D. should have known better than to incur in his wrath, to use him as a tool for their fucked up greater purpose. The Mandarin now realized that not only had he been played like a harp; he had also become an unknowing partner in what he knew S.H.I.E.L.D. was yet to fully fathom they had unleashed onto the world.

As he currently walked towards B30's meeting room location, he had to keep a lid on the anger that was boiling within him, wanting to be let out in unspeakable ways upon the structure and on almost everyone inside of it. He should have known better than to trust Nick Fury and his group of secret agents, despite what he had been told was in the best interest of the world. He should have trusted his instincts and he should have warned Pepper of the danger that had befallen her, just like he had wanted to do so in the first place.

He should have never blindly followed the likes of someone who spied for a living.

He should have never allowed himself to put the life of the woman he loved in jeopardy.

Then again, he should have never allowed himself to fall in love with Pepper in the first place.

Even after all these years, and after knowing she was forever beyond his reach, his heart still yearned for her.

His fists were shaking in full blown rage, and he all but slammed open the double-doors to the room, startling everyone inside. His eyes scanned the small room from corner to corner, searching for the one face he wanted to find, and before he demanded to see the currently absent man with the eye patch, he was lightly pushed back by a warm body pressed against his.

"Gene, you're awake!" Pepper's muffled voice against his chest made his fury dissipate somewhat. Then, her giddiness coupled with her hopeful hazel eyes now staring up at him, made the Mandarin have to push back his ire for now. "I'm so happy I didn't kill you!"

"Pepper, please, don't be absurd," Gene's brow furrowed and even though he knew he should have pushed her away from him so as to not further call attention to themselves, he instead sighed, rolled his eyes, relented to her pleading eyes and then hugged her back. "It's OK. I'm alright. It was nothing."

"That's what everyone says," she gave him a half smile. "But they weren't there when it happened."

Gene's eyes found Tony's attentive ones, standing a few feet behind the redhead, and after a rather quick and silent exchange _of thank you's_, _don't mention it's_ and _fuck you too I still hate you's_, the scientist and the half-Makluan settled their scores for the time being.

"Are you alright?" Gene asked as his eyes shifted from staring at Tony to staring at Pepper's shorter form. "Did you get hurt?"

"I'll survive," her smile was full now, "thanks to you. And I'm sorry for not listening to you."

The ginger added another hug and a kiss to his cheek to her statements before she took a step back and then returned to where Tony stood. Gene's eyes shifted left and right, and knowing better than before than to be standing close to the perpetrators of the mess they were now in, he opted to sit near the redhead and the blue-eyed boy, although not too close as to impose on their quick public display of affection.

_I guess it'll have to wait_, Gene thought of his bone to pick with Nick Fury, sensing that, in a few minutes, he was going to have a lot more reasons to beat the man to a pulp – and maybe even Tony Stark would gladly join him in the task, too.

Everyone in the room was silent for a moment, and despite only Pepper, Tony, Maria, Maya and Gene being there, it felt inhumanly stuffed. There were so many unresolved issues between all of them, so many loose ends that needed to be dealt with, that it was almost impossible to breathe. The air was thick with feelings of betrayal, deceit and lies, and the atmosphere only worsened to the point of becoming unbearable when Nick Fury walked inside. Although, when it was evident that he was being followed by none other than Howard Stark, the sensation in the air changed yet again.

"Dad?" Tony's eyes bugged open, and when Pepper turned around in place to see what her husband was having a difficult time believing, her eyes became as big with incredulity as his.

"Howard?" Pepper also asked, and before she could make her legs move to run towards her father-in-law, another familiar face appeared behind the elder Stark.

"Trish!"

And the line of unexpected guests did not stop there.

One by one, the people who Pepper and Tony had feared dead walked inside: Virgil, Diane, Jarvis, Bambi, Roberta, David, the entire Hogan family and then Rhodey himself.

"Dad!"

"Patricia!"

"Sweetie!"

"Kids!"

"Dudes!"

All uttered a word of surprise, of reinstated hope and affection. All of them ran towards the couple and met them halfway. Everyone hugged and cried and held one another with joy. Everyone kissed and thanked the heavens for being there.

Everyone, but James Rhodes.

The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. stood still by the door, his hands fisted on his sides, and his eyes narrowed at the scene. It was not as if he was not glad to see his friends, to finally see them alive and well, but this reunion only served to remind him that his employer had lied to them all – including him. Nick Fury had allowed all of them to believe they were dead, way beyond their reach, and had let them bury them and mourn them. They had not been told of the ploy to fake their deaths until two weeks ago – when they had been forced to leave their homes and everything they owned, only to be all but imprisoned in Muir Island's underground mutant research complex, without having a say.

"Rhodes," Gene's curt salutation was met with an indifferent look from Rhodey. Rhodey then looked him up and down with distaste before he returned his attention to Nick Fury, silently telling him he was not off the hook yet. The moment he had finally seen the kind of man Fury truly was, had been the moment Rhodey had lost all respect for his leader. And once all of this was dealt with, once his friends and family were able to return to their normal lives devoid of worrying about being shot in the back by AIM, Doctor Doom, or any other enemy of them, Rhodey planned to quit the institution he had grown to despise as much as Tony and Pepper did.

Tony and Pepper: his brother from another mother and his sister from another mister, both of which were now staring directly at him.

"Rhodey?" Pepper said hesitantly, her hands cupped on her chest.

"Rhodey," Tony's uttering of his name was more a statement than a question, and without further ado, both he and the redhead all but ran to their friend.

Rhodey swallowed hard and let his legs take him to the eager ginger and inventor, and soon enough the three of them held each other as if their lives depended on it. There were no words said; just tears shed and bone-breaking embraces exchanged. It physically hurt Rhodey, nonetheless, how happy he was to be in their company again, and not one soul in this room would ever fathom the burden he had felt since learning of the explosion of their jet. He had let them out of his sight for mere weeks, and they had been taken against their will and presumed dead. He had failed to protect and watch over them, just as they had always made sure they did for him.

He believed that he almost did not deserve to be standing near them right now. He believed he deserved to be friendless until the end of his days.

"I'm so happy you're here, Rhodey," Pepper said, her hands wiping away tears from his face and hers. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"And I thought I'd never see the day you didn't ask a million questions upon arrival," he teased her before he hugged her tightly, this time just her, and he kissed the side of her face. "I'm just kidding, Pepper. I missed you, too. So much."

The redhead chuckled in happiness at his words, and when Pepper and Rhodey finally separated, the two childhood friends stared at one another, but did not move. They had had no trouble hugging when Pepper had been in the midst of it, but now that it was just the two of them, Rhodey felt even more ashamed for not being there when they needed him. Unfortunately for him, Tony could see the guilt emanating from him, and after a quick shake of the head on the inventor's part, Tony ended up initiating an embrace that Rhodey tentatively returned.

"It's not your fault, man," Tony whispered to his friend. "You didn't know what Fury was capable of. You didn't know what he'd do to get his way."

"I should've known," Rhodey replied. "I fucking work for the man. I really should've known."

"It doesn't matter," Tony said as he pulled back and left his hands on Rhodey's shoulders. "What matters is that we all made it and that we're here now. What matters now is that my son is alive, Rhodey. We need to get him back. I need your help to get him back. We need to stop Doom."

Rhodey scoffed. "I was already going to help you, T, even if you didn't ask or didn't let me."

"We're _all_ going to, Anthony," Howard began, hating to interrupt the tender moment between his son and his friend, but also knowing that there had been enough putting off. His eyes then landed on the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., the man he held solely responsible for the tears, sweat and blood everyone had already spilled, and in a tone that Tony had never ever heard coming from his father, the CEO of Stark International finished his thought: "We're going to stop Doctor Doom from taking over the world, as soon as Nick tells us the truth, _for once_."

xxxXXXxxx

With everyone still present and scattered throughout the meeting room, Nick Fury prepared to give the explanations at long last. He had been mentally preparing himself for this moment for years, but now that it was finally here, even the battle-hardened S.H.I.E.L.D. director felt anxiety. It was like he was back in school, about to read an essay out loud to the rest of the overly critical class.

Everyone was looking at him as he stood in front of the room next to a large screen where he and Maya would be projecting images to go along with their explanations. He noticed Rhodey standing at attention while in his superior's presence, but a look of pure contempt coated his face. As such, Fury felt a measure of shame for a moment.

"At ease, Rhodes," Fury said to his underling. "You are here as a friend of the Starks, not as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." At hearing this, Rhodey visibly relaxed and took a more casual stance, glad that he did not have to follow decorum and openly show respect to a man that he no longer had any respect for.

"The first thing I think we should be informed of, Nick," Howard Stark began on behalf of the group, "is how Doctor Doom even came back. Tony, Gene and I all witnessed him being pulled out of our reality, years ago."

Fury nodded and pulled a small remote out of his pocket, activating the screen behind him, which showed a view of a craggy, snowy mountainscape.

"After the arrival of the Makluan ship over Manhattan," Fury began, "Earth's atmosphere was host to several extra-dimensional phenomena for several weeks. Most were small and unnoticeable, but a few were large enough for something to have come through. In one case, something did. What you are about to see was captured by a S.H.I.E.L.D. spy-cam positioned in the mountains of Latveria, twelve days after the Makluan invasion was thwarted."

Fury clicked a button on the remote, and the image on the screen subtly changed to show wind blowing away snow from the tips of the mountains, like a fine mist. After a moment, a flash of light in the clear sky caused everyone watching the screen to blink a few times, and then a hole opened in the sky, like a great wound being ripped into flesh.

With awe and horror on each face, the viewers witnessed a long, dark shape fall from within the hole and crash onto the mountainside, thrashing wildly and kicking up great clouds of snow and rocky debris as smoke curled from its elongated form. The portal it had fallen from closed again after a few seconds, but the great creature, resembling a giant centipede at least a hundred fifty feet long, remained on the frozen ground.

Gene Khan and the two Stark men felt shivers run down their spine as they remembered the last time they had beheld the evil entity known as Yogthulu. The beast was a nightmarish monstrosity from beyond the cosmos Earth was part of. But despite its terrible nature, everyone watching the clip could see that something was very wrong with the creature.

After a final tremor ran along its multi-limbed form, the alien centipede finally stopped thrashing altogether, and its body settled into the snow. Smoke continued to curl from its body for nearly thirty seconds, before a massive explosion erupted from the approximate middle of the creature's length. The corpse was blasted in two separate directions as a cloud of extremely dark smoke engulfed the area where the explosion had come from.

After a few seconds, a small figure flew up out of the smoke, hanging in the air directly above the toxic cloud. Sunlight glinted off of metal, and arcs of green-tinged electricity shot out of it in all directions. After hovering in the air for a few more seconds, the small, human-sized figure zoomed off, out of the frame of the screen, which then went black as the clip ended.

Everyone who had been told the story of what had happened during the battle for the ninth Makluan ring in Latveria knew what they had just witnessed: Doctor Doom had finally triumphed over Yogthulu and returned to Earth.

Tony did the math in his head, then looked to Pepper, who was staring right back at him, an expression of both sympathy and guilt on her face as she knew what her husband was thinking.

_Twelve days after the Makluan were beaten. Twelve days. Pepper was already gone by then. Abducted. I… we all thought she had gone to California with Loretta at that time. I was too busy moping around, missing her, feeling sorry for myself. I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in the outside world. Doom returned to Earth right under my nose and I completely missed it!_

Pepper squeezed his hand, telling him without words to not blame himself for any of this, while also fighting her own feelings of blame toward herself. It was because of her that Tony had not realized that the most dangerous enemy he had ever faced had come back, and begun plotting a slow, personal downfall of the young inventor that would tear his entire world apart. Literally.

"I believe that answers your question, Howard," Fury stated with a deadpan tone. "Now, before any other questions are asked, I think some background information is needed to clear some things up."

After the more perturbing than reassuring explanation, Nick finally gave Maya Hansen the all-clear to bring their guests up to speed. The heroes' friends and families had been kept in the dark for weeks, up until they had been brought to the island. Even now, after having been confined to their quarters for the past fifteen days, no one had relayed to them the details of why they were here – of why Doom wanted all of them dead – and of why Tony and Pepper's lives were hanging by a thread.

"Ronnie Hartford," Maya began without further ado, black and white images of a man projecting on the screen behind her, "was born in 1915. He was a brilliant scientist with a promising career in neurobiology, inspired by a neurological illness he had been born with. He attended Harvard University in 1933, but he died of his incurable disease in 1935."

Maya pressed a button on the small pointer remote he had in her hands, and the screen changed to show the image of another man. "Damien Grant, graduate student at Yale University in 1941, took on Hartford's work and continued his research. He made great leaps in the understanding of how the brain interacts with the body to heal itself, and he was even up for a Nobel Prize for it, but the joining of the U.S. in World War II halted his research. He died in a car crash, months later."

Tony and Pepper eyed each other, wordlessly exchanging the question that was on everyone's mind.

_What is all this, and why are we listening to it?_

Although Fury noticed the dwindling of their patience, he encouraged Maya to continue relaying the information in the way they had planned.

"In 1965, Greg Clark, a professor at MIT, discovered that the connection between the central nervous system and the ability to regenerate damaged parts of the body lied in a dormant part of the human brain. Digging up the work started by Hartford and furthered by Grant, Professor Clark devoted the next ten years of his life to searching for a way to awaken the potential of this area of the brain in hopes he could find the cure to all illnesses – to all conditions – including lost limbs and deficiencies in brain development. However, Professor Clark's lab burned to the ground, with him inside, in what was later claimed to be arson. His research was forever lost," Maya eyed Maria Hill. "Or so it was thought until someone put it back together to continue its development."

"In 1980," Maria began and took over the rotation of images on the projector, "S.H.I.E.L.D. sent out an invitation to scientists of all fields, asking them use Clark's research to recreate the Super Soldier serum that had created Captain America. At this point, S.H.I.E.L.D. had no idea that Steve Rogers was alive, buried in the Arctic Circle. The intent was simply to recover the serum's composition – to be able to bring it back to life, so that it could later be –"

"Weaponized," Tony said, eyes glaring at Nick and his arms crossed over his chest. "You wanted to recreate it to use it as a weapon."

"Says the man who used it to fix his heart so that he could continue _being_ a weapon," Nick deadpanned.

"Anyway," Maya continued, hoping her interruption would attenuate any argument that could have escalated between Tony and Nick. "Unbeknownst to S.H.I.E.L.D., and at around the same time, a geneticist and long-time biomolecular engineer had been toying with his own version of the serum. For years, he'd been attempting to create a virus capable of mutating the internal composition of a human to battle anything that threatened the safety of the individual. The idea was that the virus could form a symbiotic relationship with the host, forcing them to work together to boost the immune system and team-up to keep the host body free of sickness, and even reverse the effects of damage already done. This scientist had been testing the several iterations of the virus on himself, for many, many years, and the virus appeared to work perfectly on him, but only for a couple of decades at a time."

Maya pressed a button on the remote, and several versions of Extremis strands appeared on screen.

"The virus, as successful as each new dose was for him, however, was incomplete. It wasn't even stable, and it only worked on him for certain periods of time. He'd been trying for years to find the perfect combination to flawlessly merge it with a human being, bond it at such a subatomic level and in their DNA that no one would be able to tell the difference between a regular human and an infected one. He tried and tried, and failed and failed: the bond just didn't last long and it always ended up killing the host. Then, one day, he decided to take his experiment to the next level, and he decided to let nature do what he had failed to do."

For some unknown reason, a chill ran down Tony's spine. He was not a geneticist, or even a biologist, but as a scientist and a researcher, he had an idea of where Maya's conversation was leading them to.

"Extremis," Maya said as she showed the genetic sequence of the virus on the screen. "That was the name he gave it – at least in his mind, for a while. At least while he used his own natural reproductive abilities in an effort to create specimens that were just like him."

"You mean," Pepper shook her head. "You mean this guy started… he… he started…"

"Having kids," Maya nodded and shrugged. "Or at least trying. The women he quietly impregnated didn't come to term."

"Quietly? Did… did he rape them?" Rhodey asked, his head shaking in disbelief.

"No," Maya replied. "He just didn't tell them what he was, or about Extremis, or what he did. He just… slept with them, and then watched them have a miscarriage that led to their deaths, gathering data as he moved from host to host."

"And nobody got suspicious?" Tony asked. "I mean… didn't anyone ask_ why_ these women were dying left and right?"

"He was clever. He never gave his real name. He never looked the same. And he never chose specimens that lived closed by."

"Specimens?" Pepper spat in anger. "Don't you mean: the WOMEN he KILLED?"

"To him they weren't," Maya responded. "And this is his story. Not mine."

_Although at some point, it did become mine_,the brunette thought.

"Anyway," she continued after no one else interrupted her and before her thoughts got the best of her composure. "When young _women_ continued to die, he tried older ones, women who had already given birth, believing that they were more capable of coming to term. He was wrong."

"So he continued to kill them, too?" Howard asked, repulsed by the atrocities he had to hear to get to the bottom of it all. "Just as if they were cattle and not human beings?!"

"He stopped, for a while," Maya said, her eyes fixated on Howard Stark. "He met a woman he thought would be the perfect match, and he courted her for a long time while conducting experiments on her. The woman wasn't interested in him at all, though, and she then met someone else. A man that she eventually married. A man that later on became the employer of this madman. A man that hired this scientist to work for him at his lab, impressed by how much knowledge of neuroscience and robotics this man had."

"Aldrich," Howard mumbled and everyone stared at him. "Aldrich Killian experimented on Maria?"

Maya bit down her bottom lip before her head hung, knowing her silence was all the answer he needed for that. Both Tony and Howard found a place to sit down, and both of their wives held them tightly from the side. This was something neither of them had expected – the shock of finding out the common woman in their lives had been so close to the man that had taken Tony's son: a man that had been hiding in plain sight for years, working for them and saying _hi_ to them in the halls.

"That wasn't all," Maya continued. "From what he learned from experimenting on Maria Stark, he was finally able to father a child. He branded this child Specimen 1, as it was the first one to survive the pregnancy and birth. He analyzed Specimen 1 at birth, and after feeling excited with the possibility of using the baby's DNA to create a perfect Extremis virus, he was disappointed to see that the specimen had no traceable strands of Extremis, so he changed the name to Specimen 0. He believed that the baby had survived because Extremis had not been passed along to it, and thus he labeled Specimen 0 as a failure. To prevent his research from coming out, though, he killed the woman who had given birth to his baby, just as he had killed all the other women that had come close to discovering who he was. Just as he later killed Maria Stark when she, by accident, found out about what he did."

Tony felt the world around him spin uncontrollably, and for a moment he feared he was going to throw up. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that Maya was wrong, that she had no idea what she was talking about. Yet, the circumstances of his mother's death had always been sketchy at best. She had been a very healthy woman, and one day she had just suffered a fatal stroke, right smack in the middle of SI, and nothing the paramedics had done had been able to revive her failed brain and heart.

If it had not been for Pepper's arms around him and her whispering words in his ear, he was not certain he would have made it past Maya's last statement just now.

Howard, however, was a different story. He stood up from the chair he was in, turned around to face the wall and covered his eyes with his right hand. His left hand was still being held by Trish, but he was nowhere near calmed enough by his wife's attempts at soothing him. He felt guilty at being so distant with her at this moment, but he had no idea how he was expected to process something like this amidst the chaos that already plagued his son.

"Specimen 0," Maya continued, "went in his books as a massive fiasco, so he continued to test on himself and in a lab rather than on other people. He took advantage of his position at Stark International and worked nonstop to find the answer he was looking for. One day, he got the invitation from S.H.I.E.L.D., asking him to look into the Super Soldier serum, and he gladly accepted. He gave S.H.I.E.L.D. an untreated form of Extremis, and partnered up with them to find the perfect bond. Agent Mallen was another failure, but then Tony Stark came along."

Maya pulled up an image of the exact sequence Tony had used to create his version of Extremis next to an image of the raw form of the virus strand. "Tony's strand of Extremis is unique. Unable to be replicated, for some unknown reason, no matter how hard we've tried. Extremis seems to affect people in different ways, all rather unpredictably so. And in some cases, it also tends to remain inactive until the host needs it to survive."

"Jimmy," Pepper covered her mouth with her hands for a moment. "He had Extremis, all this time. But it was dormant, it was… it was…"

"It was never dormant in James, but it was untraceable. It's embedded in his brain, just like Aldrich had always wanted it to be. It's only evident in his DNA when the virus wants it to be. It's completely undetectable otherwise. Extremis and James are one. There's no shutting it down. No stopping it. Just like it became the case with Specimen 0 once the dormancy ended. All of this was unknown to Killian for many years until he came across the specimen again, a few years ago. Specimen 0 had to struggle a lot to have Extremis awaken, and it still turns on and off. But, in James, it's as natural as breathing to him."

"So, when you… when you tried to kill my son," Pepper sighed, "Extremis kept him alive."

"Yes," Maya replied. She then swapped images yet again, and this time it showed Tony's Extremis strand compared to a DNA strand the inventor had never seen before, and that to him it looked like normal genetic material.

"The unexpected activation of Specimen 0's strand was the key that unlocked all of this. Specimen 0 grew up," the second image on the screen lit up, "with no noticeable side-effects at all, living life as normally as one could expect, plus or minus some unexpected perks. And, as fate would have it, Specimen 0 met the carrier of a unique Extremis strand," On the screen, one of the strands of Extremis then lit up as well, "a strand that was not intended to be – a strand that had been the result of a lot of desperation and pure luck: a strand that cannot be replicated. Before learning that Specimen 0 really did have Extremis after all, Aldrich had named this new carrier as Specimen 1"

Maya gave them all a moment to process this information before she continued to speak.

"Specimen 0 was the result of Killian's meddling and years of faulty experiments. Specimen 1 was created outside of Aldrich's lab and control. Specimen 0-1, however," a third DNA strand image appeared on the screen, right below the other two strands, and connecting arrows joined said strands to the third one, "was the perfect amalgamation of Extremis and a human being. It was the result of the bond between 0 and 1. This is the strand both Aldrich and Doctor Doom had been searching for, albeit for different reasons and the one they have been unable to create in lab. _He, _Specimen 0-1, is the one they have both been waiting for."

Pepper opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Her hazel orbs searched Maya's and both women locked eyes. The ginger's mouth was dry and her entire body was shaky, and before she could find the courage to ask what was in everyone's mind, Tony beat them to the punch.

"What…" he held Pepper's left hand. "What are you trying to say?"

Maya pressed a button on the remote and the slide changed to showing the images of all the men she had spoken about, all on one screen. "That Ronnie Hartford, Damien Grant, Greg Clark and Aldrich Killian, are one and the same!"

She changed to the next slide, and images of the reported obituaries of the scientists appeared. "That they're the SAME man," she pointed to the screen with her left index finger, her eyes on the redhead at all times, "faking his death when Extremis failed him, re-dosing himself and then continuing the work of his previous life! Over and over and over again! With different names and in different places, but it was always him!"

The next slide showed a recent picture of baby James being carried by Aldrich himself. "That Killian found in Specimen 0-1 the cure to his disease. That because of Aldrich Killian's and James Howard Stark's similar DNA composition, Aldrich is now more powerful, dangerous and deranged than he has ever been!"

"W-wait," Rhodey tripped over his words. "You don't… you're not saying that… that…"

"Yes. I'm saying that Jill Hayes is the name of the woman who gave birth to Specimen 0. I'm saying that Jill Hayes's daughter is right here, standing before us. And that… that…"

Maya paused for a moment to take in a deep breath; most of her energy already spent, and readied for what was to come. "And that Aldrich Killian," she placed her palm on her chest, "my stepfather," she then pointed towards the ginger, "is Pepper's biological father. Pepper is Specimen 0. She's Aldrich Killian's only surviving child."

Pepper's mouth hung and she stood still as a rock, almost forgetting how to breathe. Unintelligible sounds that were meant to be anger-filled words escaped her, and no matter how much she gulped and licked her lips, her typically responsive tongue had turned to lead and refused to work. She made an effort to make her thoughts known in the clearest and loudest of ways, but her brain and her mouth refused to work in tandem. In the end, after she felt the eyes of everyone, including her husband's, stare at her with shock, from her mouth surfaced the only word that at the moment made any sense to her.

"No."

The first articulation of the word sounded like a whisper, a soft plea, as if someone had just asked her if the sum of one and one equaled three.

"No."

The second voicing of the same word was short but louder, and with an intonation that one would use as if a child had tried to stick their fingers into the electric sockets, only to be seen by a caring adult.

"NO."

The third time was not the charm, and even if her voice had been raised, her emotions were yet to be conveyed in a way that left her satisfied. It was not all she wanted to say, and it was not the tone she wanted to use, but the questions and responses that were pushing and shoving to come out of her were so overpowering that only the one word kept coming out instead.

"No. NO. NO! NO!"

"Yes," Maya said, tears now barely at bay, the passion in which she had stated her previous words still very much alive. "YES, Pepper! You are Specimen 0! You are the daughter of Aldrich Killian! And yes: you have Extremis in you! That's how you survived the visit to the Antarctic! That's why James has it in him, too! That's why Tony couldn't stay away from you! Because his version and your version of the virus can never be apart! You are the reason why Doom will take over the world! Because you exist, because you didn't die before birth, like you were supposed to! You're the reason why everything has gone to hell! You're the reason why everyone here is going to lose everything and everyone they care about! You're the reason why my mother is as dead as yours!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Tony spat, stood in front of Pepper, and pointed a finger towards the brunette. "That's enough out of you! I'm sick of this! I'm sick of listening to this bullshit! Pepper's fine! Pepper is NOT who you say she is!"

"But she is," Black Widow said as soon as she entered the room and stood by the door, Clint Barton standing right next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

"Miss Hansen is not our only source of information in Latveria. One of our own has been infiltrating Doom for years," Fury revealed, motioning with his head toward the pair.

"One of your – what?" Tony was flabbergasted, and Pepper was still unable to stop shaking uncontrollably and put together coherent words. "Who? You?" he pointed towards Natasha, but she shook her head.

"Not me, Stark. All the credit goes to my protégé."

"Protégé? You mean… a student? You've been teaching someone your skills as a spy?" Tony asked, frowning with uncertainty.

Black Widow nodded at his statement. She then stepped away from Hawkeye, who also stepped back from Natasha, revealing the third person standing right behind them, who in turn stepped forward into view of everyone in the room. The newcomer was wearing a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform and looked very uncomfortable about being in the room, and with good reason, considering the reaction to their reveal.

Every pair of eyes widened, every jaw dropped, every pair of lungs took in a sharp gasp of air. While the older members of the group were understandably shocked by this development, the five youngest occupants of the room were completely astonished and dumbfounded. Happy Hogan found himself speechless for the first time in his life. Rhodey was utterly thrown for a loop that he had never been made aware that he was essentially coworkers with Fury's latest spy. Gene Khan was filled with more rage than ever at the secrets General Fury had been keeping from him.

Tony and Pepper squeezed each other's hands even tighter, their breaths hitched in their throats at the completely unexpected development. They could not even look at each other, could not take their eyes off of the uniformed agent standing before them who had been secretly gathering information on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to help the two of them get through the ordeal ahead.

Every voice in the room was stunned into absolute silence, and every pair of eyes gazed in astounded wonder…

…upon the nervous and anxious-looking form of Whitney Stane.

* * *

**A/N: **Just so you guys know, what you have just read has _always_ been the plan. Ever since I sat down and typed the first line of the Prologue to _The Last Month_, we have been building towards these last two chapters. Now you know how high I've lifted the anvil, waiting for just this moment to finally drop it.

And hey, fun little thing here for you: my hubby, Teen Tyrant, actually took the themes of these last few chapters and worked it into the lyrics for the song _Firework_ by Katy Perry. Just something to get stuck in your head, like it happened to me ;)

Boom, boom, boom!  
The Intruder's really Doom, Doom, Doom!  
He's standing right there next to you, you, you!  
But you can't tell 'cause he's see-through, through, through!  
You're reading the Last Chroooo-nicle!  
So great it's like a miiiii-racle!  
Make's you wanna go "Aw, aw, aw!"  
'Cause Pepperony's all "Aw, aw, aw!"  
And _that's _why I married him!


	4. Chapter 3

**Guest Review Responses**

**Guest: WHYYYYYY?YOU INSANE ...GUHHHHHHHH. JUST WRITE A GODDAMN BOOK. FORGET THE CHALLENGE .I'M GONNA PUT A BULLET IN MY HEAD!** – I should write a book. And I have one idea in mind for a real book. But first I want to finish all the IMAA ideas I have in mind. The new story that I will post after this one, also for Armored Adventures, is an AU. A rather chancy one. BTW? If you haven't read _**SilverPedals1402**_'s **A Heart of Dust and Gold**, GO DO IT!

**apps: Speechless...no words to say...just wondering where and how it will end...update...you are an awesome writer...hats off to your stories **– The word "speechless" seems to be the common denominator for the last chapter. I wonder what's it gonna be for this one ;) Thank you so much for supporting me!

**Toni: Can I just say WOW. You are awesome! The amount of PLANNING and CREATIVITY that went into writing this fic. I can't even begin to imagine it! I can't believe you had this planned from the start! Thank-you and congratulations on writing this series! Seriously. Whitney!? I'd like to her more about Pepper's thoughts on the whole 'Aldrich is your biological father' thing 'Dammit! I need more information!' Yeah. I hear ya buddy :) Thanks again!** – LOL! I have, no lying, folders for each of the stories, calendars of the timeline and files upon files of how these stories come together. I have issues, it seems XDDD. Anyway, I'm happy you love it and that these efforts make your day. You will get more information here, too, but probably the kind you didn't want to know :(

**Iron kid: Love the chapter as always I got a challenge for after u finish this story but I got idea for u next story it about baby James as teenager his mom and dad go miss he take over the iron mans suits to be the new iron man and keep New York save try found them on his journey his new friends,rivals and new and old enemies so I hope u take my idea because I you think can make this story – **DUDE! ARE YOU READING MY MIND?! Almost 100% of what you just said, WILL happen. There's a few details changed, and I won't write that right after these stories, but the plot is already developed and it includes a lot of what you want to see. Now I know that least one person (and a lot more, I hope), will be interested in a sequel to this… I just hope you guys can wait for it :D

**faithful reader: three words WHAT THE HELL **– WHAT THE HELL, INDEED! Although, I'm predicting that the common theme for the reviews for this chapter will be: "HOW DARED YOU, MISS STARFIRE?!"

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"Whitney," Tony said once he found his voice and pointed at the blonde. "WHITNEY?!"

The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. nodded timidly to the inventor before she took out the Madame Masque mask from behind her back and waved it towards him to show to everyone how she had been going undercover with Doctor Doom.

"What the… the mask and you… and… what-what…?" Tony struggled to put together coherent words. "Has… has EVERYONE in here gone fucking INSANE?" Tony's arms waved in the air.

"I'm actually with Stark on this one," Gene said from his upright position behind Tony, pure self-control and his promise to Pepper to not kill Whitney the only two things keeping him from shredding the blonde to pieces where she stood. "Now I know for sure that this is a sick joke."

"It's not a joke," Fury shook his head. "This is as real as it gets. Agent Stane has been working with us for years, ever since Pepper advocated for her release from _The Void_. She's been paying back her punishment by working for us. She has many, many, _many_ more years of service to offer."

"How do you even have the mask? We destroyed it and the duplicate," Tony seethed.

"I'm afraid that was my doing, Anthony," Howard Stark chimed in. "Nick approached me a few years ago about making a new version of the mask as payment for a favor I owed him. But, he had told me that the Black Widow was the one who would be using it." Howard fixed Fury with a hard glare.

"If you recall, Stark, my exact words to you were that I would be _giving_ the mask to Black Widow," Nick replied, rather smugly. "And that's just what I did… and she held onto it until we were convinced that Agent Stane was ready to begin using it. So far, the new mask has worked out perfectly. Agent Stane has been using it almost constantly for over a year, with no signs of the psychosis that the original version caused."

"Agent? _Agent_ Stane? I don't…" Tony exhaled and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. "I don't believe this. I'm supposed to trust the word of both the woman who tried to kill Pepper, _and_ the one that tried to kill my son? Do I have_ idiot_, stamped on my forehead?"

"No, but you do have _easily fooled_ tattooed all over you," Hawkeye retorted with a smirk. "Whitney has been working near you for a while."

"What?"

As if on cue, Whitney placed the mask on her face and turned into the most recent individual she had impersonated, leaving Tony and Pepper to gasp in surprise.

"Jonas?" Tony scoffed and threw his hands in the air, as if not being surprised was mandatory at this point. "You… _You_ were piloting the jet the night it blew up?"

"Yes," Whitney said in Jonas' voice before she returned to her normal self. "We couldn't risk your pilot knowing the truth, and if we only had to rescue you two instead of him as well, the mission would be much easier for us. So we took that route."

Tony's eyes darted from staring at Whitney to over his shoulder to stare at an equally shocked Gene Khan behind him. "Did you know about this?"

"Does this look like the face of someone in the know?" Gene pointed to his angry face. "I only knew that Arthur Parks was part of it. He's the one who disabled the engines and turned off the lights."

This time, everyone's eyes landed on the Living Laser, who had joined the group between Fury's and Maya's explanations of what had been happening. The action made the man take a step back and raise his hands in a defensive stance.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I know I got carried away with the creepy song in your alarm clock, but I was told to make it believable. Ya know, in case Doc Doom was listening in, somehow. They… they didn't _tell _me how. So I improvised."

Tony rapidly shook his head left and right. "_Rain, rain: go away. Tony Stark dies today_," the blue-eyed scientist repeated. "That was _you_?"

Arthur's only response was to nod and shrug apologetically, and Tony simply threw his head back in disbelief. "I should've known. I should've known better than that!"

"We all should've known better," Howard said, finally partly able to return to a somewhat normal state after hearing the fate of his tragically departed wife. "And I think we've also heard enough for one day. I… I need time to think."

"We all do," Rhodey said, his glare poking holes in Nick, Maya and Maria. "It's late, anyway. It's been a long day and we need to rest."

"Agreed," Maria said with a nod. "The rest of the levels have been cleared for use. We may all return to our regular living quarters, at least for tonight."

"And then?" Rhodey asked, hands turned into fists, now understanding what Fury had meant by his presence here being as a friend of the Starks and not an agent of SHIELD: his contribution in this sham had been kept to a minimum in an effort to keep him and everyone else in the dark.

"Is there anything else we need to know, _Sir_?"

"Plenty," Fury said, seeing the unblemished defiance in his underling. "But like you all said: now is not the time."

There were no immediate arguments against Fury's words, but before everyone trickled out of the room to head to the upper levels of the structure, Trish approached the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. with an unreadable look on her face. The petite woman stood before the tall man, eyed him up and down and waited patiently until Nick acknowledged her.

"Mrs. Stark?" Fury gave her an almost respectful nod, though it was still eerie to him how said title could apply to both to Trish and Pepper Potts. "Is there something you want to say to me?"

"Yes," she nodded. "But, it's more of a question. A general wondering, if you may."

"Alright. What would that be?"

"How…" Trish paused and tilted her head to the side. "How do you sleep at night?"

The look on Fury's face denoted he was taken aback by the random inquiry. Yet, before he was able to even think of a good reply, he found himself on his back on the floor, punched right in the face by none other than Trish Stark.

"With a conscious like yours," her glaring eyes looked down at him, "you deserve to lose the other eye."

The commotion made everyone return to the room to see Nick rubbing his chin, staring almost in awe at the wife of Howard Stark. It was not as if the impact had been severe enough to break any bones, but the simple fact that the most reserved and quiet of all the women in here had just taken _him_ by surprise – him, the head of the most powerful international organization in the world – was something that Fury could not help but admire.

"The Starks sure know how to pick them," Nick said, almost mockingly as he stood up. "I'd hate to be there when the laughter stops."

"Then you'll hate your life tomorrow," Diane Tincher said, standing beside an upset Trish and being flanked by Bambi, Roberta and Lila. "It's not only the Starks that know how to pick them. You'll find that out."

With those words, Nick Fury finally realized that a rather long line had just formed behind Trish, with the single intent of ripping him a new one.

xxxXXXxxx

_When she opened her eyes again, it only took her half a second to remember where she was. Perhaps not the actual location or its name, but she knew that whatever dimension they were currently in had to have been accessed by one of Gene's Makluan rings during their efforts to escape the exploding base of operations of Iron Man. It actually did not matter to her where they were or how long they had been here; what she wanted to know was the way out._

_ "Gene," Pepper whispered to herself as she again 'swam' back to where the Mandarin still floated in midair, rings and armor not shinning any longer, yet she did not dare to touch him or the rings once more. She was not sure why the Makluan rings were suddenly rejecting her touch – it had never happened before – but she knew she could not pass out again._

"_Please, Gene…"_

_ She covered her mouth with her hands as a sign of desperation and fear for his wellbeing. She could now see that the humid sensation she had felt when she had woken up the first time had been blood. His blood. The lack of gravity and large amount released from his body were creating a river of plasma, far reaching enough to have woken her up the first time around._

_ "Gene, can you hear me?"_

_ Silence was the Mandarin's only response._

**Oh, please, please, **_**please**_** don't be dead!**

_ Pepper could feel her heart racing and her eyes beginning to sting, but she did not break down – she could not afford the luxury of curling up into a ball to cry. She had been in worse situations by herself and without any help, but this time around it was different and she knew it to be true. This time around, it was not only her life that was at stake. This time around, Gene's life depended on her, and she had nothing at hand to help him._

_ "Gene, please… wake up… please…"_

_ Her words fell on deaf ears. Gene was not reacting at all._

**What do I do? What am I supposed to do?**

_ She had no way to call anyone for aid. She had no idea where she was or how much longer she would be able to remain there. Was her presence here directly proportional to Gene's conscious will? If Gene never woke up, would she remain here forever, starve and then die with him? Would the oxygen ever run out? Would she become older at a rapid pace? Would Gene bleed to death here…_

_ And, now that she noticed them, what the fuck were those markings on Gene's body?_

_ She rubbed her eyes with the balls of her hands, wondering if her eyes were betraying her. She then blinked a few times, rubbed her eyes again, and it was then that she realized she was not seeing things… not per se. She was just seeing things that she had not seen before; things that were already part of Gene's body that she just now happen to notice._

_ She could not even begin to describe what she was seeing, but she was starting to remember she had seen it before. It had not been the same color or as prominent, but she recalled the first time she had seen these colored-areas on a person's body before. It had been on Nick Fury, when she had first woken up after the jet explosion, and something had taken over her actions, words and thoughts._

**The darkness**_, Pepper remembered uttering those words once before. It must have meant something to Fury based on the look he had given her when she brought it up, but she had not given it much thought until now. Gene did not have any dark spots on him in the same way Fury did, but he did have some very deep-colored ones on his stomach, head and chest._

_ "Am I _**seeing**_his injuries?" she asked aloud. "Am I seeing _**through**_ his armor?"_

_ Before she was able to answer her own questions – before she was able to try to make sense of what she was seeing, her hands brushed his rings again, albeit unintentionally, and she instantly braced for impact. This time, however, the rings rejection was not overpowering. It still stung and left her skin tingling, but something within her made her remain awake, strong, as if her body had suddenly learned how to deal with that particular type of pain._

_ "We're getting out of here," Pepper said with determination as she began examining the rings, ignoring the fact that the artifacts continued to try to shock her, and completely unaware that her pupils had dilated to the point that her hazel eyes were practically no more._

xxxXXXxxx

It was nearly midnight when he found finally her, right where he knew she would be after checking every other possible place in the building. He knew she was not the only one having a difficult time dealing with the aftermath of the last 24-hours – everyone else was also currently handling the clusterfuck of appalling news in their own way. Yet, from everybody now living in this blasted underground structure against their will, Pepper's pain was the worst of them all. Her pain related to crippling self-blame, and her guilt was of the unforeseen kind: the type that creeps up in you after realizing you inadvertently ruined everyone else's lives.

From all the places in the structure, Pepper had chosen the medical ward to experience some personal time. And from all the rooms in the medical ward, she had settled for the only padded room that had before been used to keep mental patients from injuring others and themselves – a reflection of Pepper's current feelings at the moment. A precise representation of how she viewed herself right now.

"_A menace to herself and others_," Gene's mind recalled Tony's earlier words today when he had gone to search for Pepper in the couple's room and the Mandarin had found out the duo had had a fight._ "That's what she said to me. She didn't even let me say anything else. She didn't let me convince her otherwise. She just stormed out and told me to let her be."_

The reasons why Tony had not chased after his ginger were multiple: she was upset, she told him to leave her alone (and she could not get in trouble in here), and he had to settle his own demons before he could attempt to settle hers. Yet, the single most important reason why Tony was yet to look for her, a couple of hours after Pepper had left their room in a fit of rage, was because of Gene. Gene had told him to listen to her and to let her be for now, to let him talk to her first, and to use the rest of the night preparing for when she came back to him.

_"She'll come back when she's ready," _Gene had told Tony._ "Just be prepared for when she does."_

His presence near her was not a surprise to Pepper. She had felt him coming when he had reached the stairs to the medical floor. She was not sure how much of her awareness and knowledge of his incoming company was due to her newfound ability and how much of it was due to Gene's brief aura training. In either case, she knew she felt different somehow, more constantly now, and she hated herself for it.

He silently approached her and sat to her left on the floor. She was sitting against the back wall, as far away from the only entrance of the room, as if she had personally committed herself to remain in an insane asylum. Her back was pressed against the wall's soft covering and her legs were bent towards her chest. Her arms surrounded her knees and her chin rested on her forearms, and the look on her face told of how much agony she was currently in.

There were many other things he could have noticed of her at that instant, even in the dim light of the room: the way her eyes showed how lost she felt; the trails of dried tears down her cheeks; or how broken her entire form appeared. Yet, the only thing that immediately caught Gene's eyes was the fact that her wedding and engagement rings were gone from her left hand.

He knew for a fact that she had had them on her person all this time, even before Virgil had handed Tony some of the very few personal belongings the family had managed to salvage before Fury had ordered them into seclusion. Her jewelry box, some old pictures of them, her scrapbooks, the necklace Tony had given her, Tony's pocket watch and dog tags, among other items, were all safely stored in a box in Tony and Pepper's current quarters. The one thing that had never left their fingers, at no point whatsoever – on either Tony or Pepper – had been: their rings.

The same rings that were now in her closed right hand, burning her skin with the feeling of a discovered love façade and despite the fact that Tony's ring was still very much attached to the appropriate finger on his left hand, as he had completely refuted the harsh words that Maya had uttered to them about their bond.

Finally, and after a long period of silence and stillness, Gene decided it was time to bring the redhead back to reality to face the truths she refused to believe as facts.

"You should be angry," Gene whispered, knowing that a soft tone of voice was best to approach her for now. "No one can blame you for that. It's your right to be angry at finding out you're something other than what you thought you were. You didn't choose to be that. You were just born that way."

Pepper internalized his words for a moment, and she almost scoffed at them until she slowly realized the actual weight they had coming from him. He, the great Gene Khan, who had later in his life realized he was not exclusively human. Gene Khan: the half-Makluan that had spent his entire life searching for what he had been told was his birthright, even before he knew how much the purpose of his existence in this world had already been decided for him before he had been born.

Yes: Gene understood what was crossing her mind – what plagued her heart and soul. But that did not mean that her reasons were less valid or would go away by simply coming to terms with whom she was – with _what_ she was.

"Anger won't make it any less real," she whispered back as a summary of her thoughts and slightly surprised at her voice coming out before she even realized she was speaking again. "Anger won't change the fact that I'm the daughter of a screwed-up man – a serial and cold-blooded murderer who killed so many innocent women, including mine and my husband's mother. Anger won't change the fact that me being alive has caused so much pain, to so many people. Or the fact that my son is nothing more than the result of a science experiment. Or the fact Tony and I are together only because that's what a virus determined we should be."

"You're right," Gene said after a pause. "Anger won't make it any less real, but it does cloud our judgement. Makes us either see things that aren't really there, or blinds us from seeing the truth, even when it's staring us in the face."

"That's not anger," she scoffed. "That's just Extremis in me that apparently helps me see people's auras when I'm stressed."

"And, are you stressed now?"

"Yes. Among other things."

"So?" Gene said with a tilt of the head, for the first time staring at directly her since he had walked inside. "What do you see in me?"

Pepper could not stop her head from turning to face him, and her eyes from dilating for a few seconds, allowing her to see what she was not yet aware her son could pinpoint with better accuracy than she could ever hope to do.

"Right now?" she questioned once her eyes returned to normal and in turn her sight did. She then straightened her face once more. "You're calm. Very… serene."

"How can you tell?" he asked, and Pepper simply shrugged, not at all sure herself how exactly she was able to interpret what she saw. Gene then concentrated on his next set of feelings, and then asked the redhead to read him once again.

"Huh," she creased her brow as she _read_ him again. "That's… weird…"

"What is?"

"Wow, it… it changed. So quickly."

"And?"

"How can that be?" she asked herself, her eyes traveling up and down his body as she pieced together what she had already seen a few hours ago, just not on him. In fact, she had been seeing everybody's emotions through their auras, one person at a time, ever since Maya had revealed the situation at hand to all of them. It did not matter how much she had tried so far, the poor redhead had not been able to stop herself from reading and seeing the effects of everyone's feelings around their forms. It was driving her crazy and it also increased the guilt within her.

"You… you're still calm, but you're also anxious and… happy, but … also sad… and hopeful… and…" she was unable to finish her description when it dawned on her that the last thing she saw in him was desire, akin to a softer version of lust.

"What," she swallowed hard and looked away. "What on Earth are you thinking about, Gene?"

"You," he told her without missing a beat. "I'm thinking about you."

Pepper closed her eyes and the tears returned, and not only because she still felt shame for Gene having unrequited feelings for her, but because Gene's current aura status resembled Tony's when she had walked out on him hours ago. The only difference was that in Tony, the presence of yearning and what she could only assume was love were about ten times brighter than what she had just seen in Gene, and that Tony's colors had also resembled fear.

"He… he doesn't love me," she opened her eyes and angrily wiped her tears. "He only thinks that he does."

"Extremis lets you read his mind, too?"

"No," she replied. "But I know what he's thinking. It makes sense, actually, what Maya said."

"Which part?"

"That Extremis is the only reason why Tony and I can't be apart. I didn't want to believe it, or even think about it, but it's true. So true. The first time Tony willingly touched me in a way that couldn't be absolutely written off as a gesture of pure friendship, was the day he used Extremis to fix his heart. And the rest… we all know how it turned out."

"I don't think that's true."

"It is," she sniffled. "I remember thinking it was odd, that when I ran to him to see that he was alright, his hands reached out for mine. He then hugged me and Rhodey and picked us up, and when he put us back down, he grabbed my hands again. He… he'd never done that. _Ever._ It was always me initiating any contact with him, and he rarely responded to it. Until then, he hardly hugged me back. I think he started reciprocating after a while just so that I wouldn't feel like a loser for having a crush on him when he clearly did not have one back."

"So, you're saying that Tony never liked you until Extremis kicked in? Is that what you think happened?"

"Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying happened! Looking back now, thinking about the many times I tried to show him how I felt for him… he never… he…" her eyes filled with tears again. "He never gave me hope. He wasn't rude about it, but he always made it clear that he wasn't interested in me like that. He… he dated Whitney and he didn't tell me about it because he knew it'd hurt me… he… he didn't take the invitation to kiss me…"

Pepper closed her eyes again as she tried to forget the feeling of disappointment she had experienced when, after finding out who Force and Shockwave were, and she had asked Tony what was stopping him from kissing her for a job well done, he had all but chosen to ignore her offer.

"If… if it weren't for Extremis in him… if it weren't for it in me… He… we… we wouldn't be… we shouldn't even be… " she added the last part while staring at her rings resting in the palm of her hand.

Pepper's words were interrupted when she felt Gene's hands on her cheeks, slowly turning her to face him. He closed his eyes and shortened the distance between them, and just when Pepper feared he was about to kiss her, he simply pressed their foreheads together and uttered a single word.

"No," he exhaled deeply, before adding: "You're wrong."

Afore to Pepper asking him to explain what he meant and what he was trying to do, she felt her entire body go stiff. She closed her eyes, felt electricity trail up and down her body, and she gasped sharply when she realized what Gene had done.

_"I've been in Tony's mind more times than I should be allowed to claim I have,"_ Gene's voice resounded in her head. _"If you won't believe me you're wrong… if you won't believe his words… then maybe you should feel what's in his heart."_

Suddenly, Pepper's mind's eye opened, and she was back in a familiar hall. She was standing by Tony's locker, or so she thought, staring at the other students passing by, until she saw herself walking toward where she stood.

_"Tony!"_ she heard herself say as she waved. _"Sorry I'm late!"_

_"It's OK,"_ she felt herself reply, but it was not said in her voice. It was Tony's. _She_ was Tony. She was him, from head to toe, seeing the world of this memory from his perspective as he had experienced it. _"I just got here."_

_He's lying_, real-life Pepper thought_. I can feel him lying. He… he was waiting for me!_

Pepper knew what was coming, she remembered that day. It was the first Valentine's Day that Tony had experienced at a school, and he had claimed that it made him sick.

_"What held you up?" Tony asked. "Teacher lost track of time?"_

_ "No, I… well…" _memory_-_Pepper bit her bottom lip and real-life Pepper felt Tony's heart skip a beat at that. She felt his eyes land on her mouth, something she had not realized had transpired when it had happened, and he then discretely licked his lips at the gesture before he busied himself by pretending to use his phone.

_"Got detention again?"_

_ "No. Nothing bad. Just… this guy. He gave me this."_

Real-life Pepper felt Tony's innards churning when he gazed at the single flower she had been given by a student she hardly every spoke to. A myriad of questions ran through Tony's mind, from who the hell this guy was to wondering if Pepper was even interested. The one thing that real-life Pepper felt the most, however, was a particular feeling that made Tony shake where he stood.

_"He's… jealous?"_ Pepper asked herself in shock in her mind, recalling very clearly that the inventor had seemed everything but concerned with the whole affair. _"Tony's jealous?"_

_"He's more than jealous,"_ Gene replied and then the memory changed. This time, real life-Pepper was again Tony, waiting outside the school, resting his back against the wall, moving only when the guy who had given her the flower walked out.

_ "Hey! You! Matthew, right?" Tony said and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder to stop him._

_ "Yeah? Uhm, oh, hi, Tony! What up?"_

_ "Not much," Tony shrugged. "Well, actually, there's something I wanted to ask you."_

_ "What is that?"_

_ "It's about Pepper."_

_ "Oh, yeah! That cutie! What about her?"_

_ "What are your intentions with her?"_

Real-life Pepper's current face was the same one she could see on Matthew's face.

_"What's it to ya?" Matthew asked with a frown. "You guys dating or what?"_

_"No, of course not,"_ Tony replied, even though Pepper could feel and hear what he had actually wanted to say, but he had not had the courage to voice.

"_She's just my friend. One of my best friends. And I just wanted to make sure you aren't gonna mess her up."_

_"Oh,"_ _Matthew said and paused, clearly thinking about an appropriate response. In turn, Tony eyed the boy up and down, thought about a million reasons why the guy was not right for his redheaded friend, and then had to hold back the need to lie about his and Pepper's relationship status to get him to retreat._

_"Well," Matthew began._ _"I just wanted to ask her out. To get to know her better. What do you recommend I do?"_

_Back the fuck off_, real-life Pepper heard Tony think while she felt irritation quickly rising in him. In the end, however, Tony simply shrugged in a nonchalant manner before he spoke again.

"_I don't know what to tell you man. As far as I know, she already likes someone."_

_"She does?"_

_ "Yeah," Tony cleared his throat. "Gene. You know that guy? The one with the glasses?"_

_ "Gene Khan?"_

_ "Yeah. That's the one. She talks about him all day. I think she really, really, really likes him."_

_ "Oh," Matthew's voice dripped disappointment. "I… I didn't know that."_

_ "Well, now you do. Sorry, man."_

The memory suddenly dissipated and it was then replaced by a different one and, when that one finished, another took its place, and then another and another, all non-stop; all instances in which Tony had thought of Pepper as more than just a friend, even before he realized what he was starting to feel for her: his jealousy at hearing Pepper become spellbound by Gene; the unfounded anger at seeing the redhead walk Gene out from the abandoned warehouse; the fear in his gut at potentially losing her when the Fire Guardian at Mt. Saint Helens controlled her; his possessiveness when he found out she was going out with Happy…

All of them, multiple occasions in which she had no idea what had been crossing his mind or situations she thought she knew how he had felt or thought. All moments in which she would have bet her spleen that Tony did not like her like she liked him. But she was wrong. Oh, so completely wrong!

Thanks to Gene, she could not only be the witness of the progression of his feelings for her, but sense them first-hand as well. She could hear his internal arguments with himself; one side telling him to make a move, the other telling him not to ruin the friendship. His arguments then evolved from fearing ruining the friendship to wanting to keep her safe, mostly after Obadiah had taken her hostage, and that was not even counting how he had almost lost his cool when Rhodey had told him what Stane had done to her.

She could feel his desperation, his anguish, his growing need to have her nearby, to touch her, to hear her voice, to make her laugh. She felt herself drowning in his constant battle with himself, wondering what the best course of action was. She saw the dedication he put into creating her armor, how much he tested, retested and triple tested the resistance of the suit, all while keeping her absolute safety in mind.

She could feel that after Extremis finally took over and repaired his heart – the moment she had just been cursing to no end – was actually the instance that had helped unravel what he felt inside.

Extremis had been the catalyst for his realizing his feelings for her.

Extremis had allowed him to open up his heart.

Extremis had not been the reason for his love for her – it had only allowed him to take the plunge.

With Extremis, he felt more in control of his life – more capable of defending and protecting those he loved. And even though the word _love_ was at that point not yet associated with what he felt for her, he at least started to act on his crush.

Tony had been conflicted, for many months, before he had ever made a move, and it was now that she realized why that picture of their faces dirtied up with ice cream was so important to him – why he had placed it in his pocket watch. It had been that moment, that particular day, that Tony had finally accepted it all: the day he had finally come to terms, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had been falling for his redheaded friend, all along.

And he had been OK with that.

His heart had almost exploded in happiness, in excitement, at thinking of the possibilities, of what could become of them together. And everything he had said and done after that, finally made sense for Pepper: the increased physical contact; the kiss and the hug after the Makluan battle; the need to pick her up at home to walk her to school; his almost illogical jealousy of Happy hugging her… his words following his unspoken confession… his actions… every single one of them…

_The forceful yet gentle command made her stop her efforts to move away. He then laced his right hand on hers and pressed them both onto his chest. Pepper was surprised to feel how rapid his heart was working, and she wondered if he could feel her similarly pounding one through his shirt on his back._

"_That's all your doing, Pep," he admitted of his fast-pacing heart._

_Pepper closed her eyes, not sure what to say but enjoying the declaration nonetheless. She felt him turn around while still in her embrace, and a moment later he ended up facing her, his hands tenderly surrounded her cheeks with his fingertips resting on the back of her neck, and he silently waited for her to look at him. She finally opened her eyes once more and held his gaze as steady as she could as he spoke again. _

"_Any chance you'd like to give this jerk a shot?"_

"_Are you offering to be the rebound, Tony Stark?" she asked with a tone that told him she was joking about the rebound part and with a smile on her face._

_Tony shrugged and returned the smile, still holding her face in his hands. "I'll take what I can get for now," he joked back._

_Her face suddenly turned serious. "Are you sure, Tony?"_

"_What do you mean, Pepper? Of course I'm sure. I've been sure for a long time."_

"Sure for a long time," Pepper found herself saying aloud before another shared memory came to her mind.

"_I don't, but that doesn't mean they don't apply, or that everyone else doesn't care for them either and that they won't be trying to enforce them, or that I won't be feeling the effects of them. It's a fact of life… or at least at school. But, hey! They'll only bother me until you and I break up or when school's over; whichever comes first," she finished with a shrug and a weak smile._

"_Then I guess it's going to be a long last month at school, huh? Or a very long life, if those rules still apply after graduation," Tony said with a soft smile as he waited for the implicit meaning of his words to befall the redhead. She narrowed her eyes at him as his words repeated in her mind, and once she understood what he had meant, she blushed._

_She heard him chuckle when she rested her forehead on his chest to hide her flushed face, groaning and cursing under her breath at his damned charm. _

"_You are thinking __**way**__ ahead of yourself, Tony. Like, light-years ahead."_

"_A light-year is a measure of distance, not time, Pep."_

"He did care…" Pepper felt the tears appear again, but this time they were a show of relief, of renewed love and hope. "Even way back then… he did love me."

"_What they want is for you and I to break up, Tony," she responded bitterly._

"_Well, they are shit out of luck, alright? I'm not going to let a stupid prank get in the way of us." _

_He used his thumbs to wipe away her tears before he bent down and kissed her square on the lips. Everyone's eyes – including Rhodey's – widened in surprise since it was uncommon to see any couple in school be involved in PDA in the halls, and not even when he had dated Whitney did anyone see Tony and the blonde kiss anywhere else but on the cheek. After a few seconds, Tony finally pulled away and gave the redhead a smile._

"Poor Tony..." her tears were now of guilt. She had walked out of their room, mad and distraught, doubting his words and his feelings for her, thinking she was absolutely correct in her assumptions. She now realized she had no leg to stand on. Her arguments were wrong. _She_ was wrong. Again. She had always been wrong, every time she had ever doubted his feelings for her.

"_I was wrong, Pep. Very wrong. I'm sorry for what I said and what I did to you. I'm sorry for getting you into this mess. I'm sorry I accused you of something you didn't do. I'm no better than Ms. Jones. I did to you the same thing she did. I don't know what came over me. I just… I…"_

_Tony gritted his teeth and closed his eyes again. His right hand formed a fist and he lightly tapped the window with it with every broken phrase he uttered. _

"_I was a jerk… an idiot… I wasn't thinking… I was…" he licked his lips and inhaled deeply. _

_He had not planned to confess to her what he had been feeling, but that had been before he had known about the possibility of never seeing her again. The tables had turned; the rules had changed, and the role he was being forced to carry out was not one of his liking. And yet he would play the game; he would bring down the veil that sometimes surrounded him and eat his pride if that was what it took for the girl to know he was sincerely regretful for what he had done._

"_Jealous, Pepper," he finally said. "I was jealous… I didn't want Happy to touch you. I didn't want to see you with him. I know how it sounds, but…" his left hand turned into a fist. "But I couldn't help it. I don't want to see you with anyone else… ever again… not anyone else but me…"_

_He looked up to see that Pepper's mouth was slightly ajar, and that her arms had come down to rest on her sides but she was still standing in the same place as before. Tony's eyes landed on hers and he pressed his body closer to the window before he spoke again. _

"_Don't leave for California, Pepper. Team Iron Man needs Rescue, and I… __**need**__ you."_

The ginger's shoulders sagged. Her eyes closed. And for the millionth time in the past few minutes, she felt as if there would never be ample ways to show Tony how repentant she was for what she had done to him, hours ago.

"Is that enough?" Gene finally asked after the last memory completely dissipated and he slowly pulled his face away from Pepper's. "Or do I need to show you more?"

"No," she shook her head, opened her eyes and then thanked him with her glistening and dilated orbs, unconsciously seeing honesty pour out of him with every word. "I don't need to see any more."

xxxXXXxxx

_"Finally!" Pepper almost jolted in happiness when she recognized the ring that she knew had sent them to a different dimension. She knew she could not make it work, at least not by herself since she did not have the Dragonseed in her, but she knew that if she relied on Gene's teachings about chi and aura sensing, she could get them both out._

_ "Hang in there, Gene," Pepper pleaded to her friend. "I'm gonna save you. I promise. I'm not going to let you die."_

_ Seconds turned into minutes even though it felt they were in a land where time stood still. She closed her eyes, concentrated all her energy and thoughts, took deep breaths and got to work. All she had to do was trick the rings into thinking it was Gene wielding them. All she had to do was manipulate his chi enough to temporarily supplant her own energy with his. If she 'borrowed' enough of his energy and redirected it back at the ring with the mental command for it to take them back to Earth, back to wherever Tony was at the moment, it might be enough to make it respond. The idea seemed simple enough – as everything in theory seemed to be. Yet in practice, it was an entirely different animal; a completely different wild life to tame._

_ It was risky. It was tedious. And it was not guaranteed to work. But she had no other choice. They had no other choice. It was the only way they would survive._

_ Survive._

_ The keyword for her Extremis to work._

_ And once again, it did._

xxxXXXxxx

The next morning, Tony was the first one to wake up. This time, however, it was the second opening of his eyes of the day. The first one had occurred two hours ago, before the alarm had gone off, and he had done so only to prevent it from waking up a tired Pepper with its loud noise.

_Pepper_, the simple thinking of her name brought a happy, stupid-looking grin to his face despite all the chaos and destruction that currently plagued the rest of the world; the memory of the unexpected events of last night, still fresh in his mind.

_The sudden unlocking of the door in their living quarters surprised him, but not as much as the current look on her face did. He jumped from the edge of their small bed where he had been anxiously waiting for her return ever since Gene had told him to leave it all up to him. Tony was not sure what it was that Gene could do that he himself could not do for his own wife, but in desperate situations, desperate solutions did end up being all he had left._

_ "Pepper, please," he began, mere steps from her incoming form as she entered the room. "Let me – ugh!"_

_ At first, Tony thought that she had either slapped him hard or punched him in the face. The force of the impact on him almost knocked him onto his butt, but he held on to her arms to prevent the fall. He then felt his body being spun quickly, almost violently so and, next thing he knew, he was pressed against one of the walls of the room with Pepper's hands and body rummaging all over him._

_ "I'm sorry," she barely got out between overly zealous kisses that left no room for question about her intentions with him just now. Tony returned her kisses with equal passion and need as he felt coming from her, but his still opened eyes and partly hesitant touches told her he was confused as hell._

_ "I'm sorry, Tony," she repeated before she began nibbling on his neck. "I'm so sorry!"_

_ He closed his eyes, threw his head back against the wall and dug his fingers into her sides. There had been many occasions that Pepper had been in his present position and many others when she had taken her share of initiative in bed. None of those times, however, not in the __**years**__ they had been together, had he ever felt as overpoweringly desired by her as he currently did. It was not awkward, just new – and definitely not unwelcomed. Yet, something inside of him told him to be wary, to not just blindly accept the way she was hastily making him lose all rational thought and the little control he currently had over his very being. _

_As much as he wanted to let her lead, to let her have her way with him in whatever way she wanted, he simply could not. Especially not after he had no idea what was crossing her mind, after knowing how upset she had been and how much they had been put through in the past two days. Most especially, not after she had left his side, hours ago, ready to once again attempt to end it all without looking back._

_ Suddenly, a heartbreaking thought crossed his mind. With self-control he thought no man would have been able to muster after the woman he loved had him half undressed, pinned to a wall and was in route to being undressed herself, Tony abruptly stopped her trails of kisses down his exposed chest and pulled her back to face him. He swallowed hard, licked his lips and held her wrists in his hands, all the while searching her eyes for the truth – for the reasoning behind her actions of now._

_ When she stared at him dumbfounded, unable to make sense of his own movements while she breathed hard, and he did not move for an eternity, Pepper frowned in a way that made Tony want to take a step back. In a swift move, she was able to partially reverse their roles by using the grip he had on her to her advantage. She guided her arms toward the wall behind him, twisted her hands, and then ended up being the one grabbing onto his wrists. Just like that, Tony was now at her mercy using strength he was not aware she even had, and while he could still have easily pushed her away, he was so confused and aroused that the thought never entered his mind._

_ He opted to loosen up his tense muscles and kissed her back, more intensely than before. Just as he expected, she eventually loosen the hold she had on his arms, and when she moved her hands to his back, Tony took the opportunity to pull away ever so slightly and asked the most pressing question he had in his mind._

_ "Are you saying goodbye?"_

_ She grinned against his lips while she shook her head vehemently, answering his question between kisses and almost out of breath._

_ "Never," she kissed his closed eyes. "Never again," she kissed his face. "Not in a million years," she finished her response by adding: "Now shut up and kiss me back, you jerk!"_

_ He barely had time to chuckle before she silenced him with kisses once more. _

He slowly turned around in the bed until he once again faced the back side of his redhead. He pushed himself closer to her bare body, ran his left hand down her face, shoulder, arm and hip, and then lazily rested his arm around her waist. He pressed his chest to her back, kissed her shoulder and slid his nose up her neck, and then felt the positive results of his efforts in the form of goosebumps trailing down her skin.

"Is it time yet?" she was barely able to get out. The previous day had been stressing enough, finding out most of the things that had been kept a secret from them, and today promised to be another day of harsh truths. The world still depended on them and S.H.I.E.L.D. An unknown number of lives had still been lost, on a global scale. Their son was still being kept in Latveria, and Doctor Doom was still set on exerting his revenge. None of the problems had changed overnight. Nothing had fixed itself or had gotten better on its own. Nothing had magically turned into a figment of their imagination.

But something had undoubtedly shifted between them last night.

"Nobody has come knocking on our door," Tony whispered to her, inhaling her scent without discretion, blatantly letting her know and _wanting_ her to know that he was basking in her presence. From all the times they had made love, last night had been the first time that it had felt the way it had. It had felt as if all these years there had been an invisible wall neither of them had known was there, and it had somehow crumbled after their fight, leaving them closer than they had ever thought they could be. Perhaps it had been the result of pent-up frustrations or the lack of intimacy in the past few weeks. Or maybe it was just the fact that Extremis had been on high alert in both of them.

"Do you want to sleep a little longer?" he tenderly kissed her cheek. "I can get started while you rest."

"No," she said almost immediately even though she was struggling to open her eyes. The events of the previous day had taken a toll on her, that much was true, and after learning from Gene how deep and intense Tony's affection for her actually was, her emotions had been shaken to exhaustion as well.

"I have to hear this," she placed her left arm on his. "I have to find out what else we need to know."

"I don't want to think how much worse it can get," he confessed to her. "I'm honestly tired of this act Fury keeps pulling on us. I'm so tired of all of them!"

"I'm tired, too," the redhead said and then turned to face the blue-eyed inventor. "But after today, there's nothing they'll be able to keep from us. With everyone else here, including Rhodey and Gene, they'll have no option but to spill the beans on everything. Or we'll all go crazy on their ass."

Tony chuckled and gave her a small nod. "Especially Trish. I didn't know she had it in her."

"I know. But you'd be surprised what people do when they're pushed just right. I mean, you and I are no strangers to that, but it's expected that we kick ass. Trish, Diane… even Roberta, they're not very physical. Not even trained. But I have a feeling that before this is over, we're all gonna have to learn something new or will have to do something we aren't used to doing or would want to do."

_And that scares me the most_; he wanted to say but did not. Instead, he simply nodded to her, kissed her lips slowly, and when he finally pulled back to admire her sleepy face, he was glad to see her smile.

"Shower?" she asked with a wink and a smirk.

"Before or after?" he teased, earning him an even wider smile from her.

"How about during?"

xxxXXXxxx

The meeting room felt crowded again, more so than it had felt like the day before, yet no one dared to leave or even voice their complaints about it. Fury had promised them the rest of the information they so desperately wanted to know, and they would not end this meeting until it was all up in the air. Today was not any old day – it was the last day of being in the dark, of the truth being kept from them, and soon enough they would be on their way to planning the most intricate and dangerous counterattack that any of them had ever been a part of.

The people present we are all the same as before – Whitney Stane included, but the environment felt a tad less formal than yesterday. No one was sure why the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. was leaving his guard down; maybe the hit Trish had landed on him had made a difference overnight – or perhaps it was just that he too was tired of keeping up the circus for so many years.

"He was weak when he came back," Maya began unceremoniously, yet she easily caught the attention of everyone in the room. "Doctor Doom suffered a great deal while in the hands of Yogthulu. I'm surprised he made it out, to be honest."

The brunette's posture showed she was as exhausted as everyone else was. She rested the back of her head against the top of the chair she was sitting in, rested her hands on her lap, and then stared at the ceiling while she relayed the rest of the story – as if she was able to watch it unfold before her.

"He was weak for years after that. He wouldn't admit it, but he was on edge, jumpy even. That's why he set up the bounty. Because he couldn't take you out himself. Aldrich told me that Yogthulu is… _was _an extremely cruel creature. He said that Doctor Doom had to watch his fiancée die, over and over again, while he was trapped in that dimension with it."

The reminder that Victor von Doom had at some point been almost a normal human, with a family and people he cared about, did nothing for anyone in the room. It did not matter who he had been before – what mattered was who he was today and what he had done to them and to the world.

"I got in because Aldrich told me he was working on a very important cure for cancer," Maya continued. "That it had been commissioned by S.H.I.E.L.D. He told me he needed a geneticist and botanist and, and since I was both of those and also a complete nobody and his stepdaughter, I accepted his offer without question. He told me that this research was historic, showed me the records of what this virus could do in the right hands… He didn't tell me he had been the only one working on Extremis all those years, or that he had created it. And by the time any of us realized he was working for Doom, all we could do was play it out. As weak as Doom was, he had plenty of tech at his disposal. We, S.H.I.E.L.D. and I, we didn't want him to just let loose in the world what he did yesterday. Not until we were ready to fight back."

"But you failed," Tony deadpanned. He had his back hunched, his forearms resting on his thighs, and his eyes fixated on the floor. "You fucked it up more than it needed to be. You should've just told me when you first found out. I'd… I wouldn't have let this happen. Any of it."

"Just as now, there wouldn't have been anything you could've done, Stark," Fury said. "Or anyone, for that matter. Doom covered all his bases. He knew what you would do about weapons being accessible to anyone but you. He had all of us by the balls. Our hands were tied."

"I'd buy that your hands were tied," Pepper said from her position to Tony's right. As opposed to his hunched posture, Pepper was sitting upright, arms and legs crossed, with a menacing look on her face. "But I don't buy that he had you by the balls. You have none."

Despite the grim situation, Tony looked back to her with a smirk, proud of his wife's quick wit. She replied to his approval with a quick tilt of her head.

"Anyway," Maria Hill began. "It took Doctor Doom a few weeks after his return to gather enough strength to set up the bounty. Fifty million in U.S. dollars. Thirty million for Pepper, so that she would be the first likely target, and cause Tony as much pain as possible with her death. The remaining twenty for Tony himself. He summoned everyone and anyone who had known you and had a score to settle with you. Almost everyone agreed to join. All but one person."

"Who?" Tony asked, wondering who of all his enemies had taken a pass at becoming a legend overnight.

"The Ghost," Maya replied and Tony immediately tensed. "He said that he'd make more money blackmailing you. He said you were worth more alive."

Pepper's eyes sought out the genius' but he remained focused on the floor before him as his mind replayed the events of that day.

_"There you are!" Ghost said and aimed one of his new laser grenade guns toward the couple. And without shields to protect them, all Iron Man could do was move out of the way. It was difficult to walk around the collapsing structure at the same time that they were being shot at, so Tony flew them both to the nearest window, rearranged Pepper so that most of her body was protected by his, and jumped…_

_From the tenth floor._

_One of his armored boots failed him on the way out and their landing was sketchy at best, but he still managed to keep her from taking any damage from the fall. Ghost was right behind them, jumped out of the same window Tony had just broken, disappeared in midair, and then landed softly on the ground just a few feet before them. Tony quickly jumped to his feet and stood in front of Pepper, who was still trying to make sense of what was going on._

"_You know something? I've just figured out I've been going about this all wrong."_

"_What?"_

"_Well, my plan was to blackmail you, right? Put some old-fashioned nanobots inside of her – which I did, and then threaten her life forever. But, I think I just thought of a better plan."_

"_What is that?" Iron Man asked and then felt Pepper crawl her way up by using his legs and back as support until she could look over his shoulder to face Ghost._

"_After breaking into Hammer Multinational, and finding out what happened to your ex-girlfriend, Whitney, I figured out how to replicate Madame Masque's technique – it wasn't that difficult, really. That's how I got into your fancy apartment as Josh… how I kept an eye on you…"_

"_So?" Tony asked just to earn him some time to think of what to do next. The inventor could already tell what Ghost's new plan was and he knew it did not bode well for him and Pepper._

"_So, why go through the trouble of having to put up with you and that pesky redhead if I could just disappear you both? Why waste my time and yours blackmailing you if I could just as easily take your place as the CEO of Stark Solutions and have my money with me every day? No one would ever know, right, Tony? All anyone would see is you."_

Pepper furrowed her brows when she saw Tony's aura spike in anger while he stared at the palms of his hands. It had been a long time ago and they had both survived that day, even if just barely. His actions had been more than just a little justified. They were alive today because of them. Yet, the ginger knew that his first kill – Tony's first somewhat conscious act of murder, would always be present in his mind. Even if she knew he would do it again if he had to. Even if he had come to terms with it, in his own way.

"You took care of him, though," Fury said, measuring his words. "But he was just the first one."

"Sasha Hammer came next," Maria Hill started. "She sold you her company because with the little money she had and what she got from you, she bought out and revived the Maggia. With Justin Hammer and Count Nefaria being zombies, and with her investors running for more profitable businesses, she had nothing to lose."

"She…" Maya gulped, for an instant feeling guilty at remembering that she had known, all along, what Pepper and Tony had been up against even before their covert operation within the Maggia ranks. "She wasn't counting on Pepper figuring out her tactics, though. She wasn't counting on you two going undercover to stop the Maggia's plans."

"_You heard me!" she pointed an accusing finger towards him. "I had no clue you were here until two days ago! But, as it turns out, your presence here, as unexpected as it was, worked well for me."_

_Tony flared his nostrils, narrowed his eyes at her and clenched his fists. "No," he said, took a step back and his arm reached behind him to the lock the door. "It didn't."_

_The moment the words left him, the wall behind Sasha exploded in a million pieces when the suit busted inside and caught the attention of the guards outside the office. Tony immediately ducked, and seconds after he practically kissed the ground, the bullets began making holes in the front wall. He covered his head with his arms and hoped the bullets ricocheting off his suit did not end up hitting him in the exchange._

_As the amount of bullets fired began slowing down, he began crawling away from the door, aiming to reach the hole that would be his escape. It was not lost to him on his way out, however, that when the firing finally stopped and he heard a loud thud near him, it had belonged to the dead body of Sasha Hammer, killed by her own thugs._

"Then came AIM," Fury stated. "They tried to kidnap Doctor Betty Ross for their efforts to merge their controller chip with the nanobot project that Project Pegasus created. They tested their new robotic army's tactics by attacking the Stark International building when Miss Potts was bedridden after the Maggia encounter."

Both Maya's and Tony's lips pursed at that.

"_Fine," Scott said and stared at Tony up and down. "Pepper's dying, anyway. Stark killed her."_

"_Why you little son of a –"_

"_Stop! I mean it! I don't care if you're rich, Tony. If you don't calm the fuck down, I'm going to get security guards to escort your ass out of here, and yours too, Scott!"_

"_Like that'd keep me from her," Tony scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. He then opened his mouth to continue his rant but his words were interrupted by the loud beep of his pod. He took it out from his pocket, his eyes not once leaving Scott or Maya but when he spared a glance to the incoming message, all color drained from his face._

"_No!" he said, eyes wide as saucers, and he then began rushing down the hall and jumped into the elevator._

"_Tony!" Maya called. "What is it? What's wrong?"_

_The brunette's questions went unanswered, but when the television screen in the nurse reception station suddenly changed to a news report, Maya and Scott saw what had made the inventor rush his way out of the hospital._

_Stark International was on lockdown, currently under attack by AIM._

"AIM then used what they learned from that attack on SI to try to take Doctor Ross during the event she attended," Hill said. "But again Miss Potts and Mr. Stark thwarted that."

Pepper's eyes were the ones that looked lost in time now. She remembered that portion of her life, when she and Tony had been separated because of her own decision to break apart. She had been so angry at him – at finding out he had asked Gene to jumble her memories of them, and both of them had paid the price for their stubbornness. That had been a year of pain and suffering for the both of them: a year that had slowed down their relationship and their everyday lives, and had perhaps even provided an advantage to Doom's current plans.

For his own part, Tony remembered the feeling of dread he had felt when he had heard Pepper scream for the armor's force field's protection at having found herself in the middle of AIM's attack during the National Women's History Month celebration in New York.

"_**SHIELDS!"**_

_At hearing her desperate scream, Tony Stark stopped in his tracks, his eyes widened under his faceplate, looked over his shoulder and gasped._

_ "Pepper…no…"_

_ The redhead was covering Maya's upper body with her own while the armor's shields built around them. Once the shield closed and the AIM attacks were deterred by the force field, Pepper lifted her head, stared all around her and sighed in relief. She then carefully placed Maya's head on the ground, stood up, turned to face Tony and double tapped her right ear._

_**"Stark, Maya's down,"**_ _he heard her icy voice inside his helmet and he soon realized she was connected to the Rescue interface via her pod. It took the inventor a few seconds to react to her words and when he did it had been only because Whiplash had managed to take advantage of his distraction and had hit him in the back, sending the red and gold suit of armor and its user crashing down to the floor._

_**"Tony!"**_

"Every member of AIM was there that day," Fury stated. "And you fried every single one of them. That was all she wrote for them."

"After that, and after Scott left," Maya began, "Doctor Doom wanted me to move to Latveria. So I broke up with Tony. Moved to Europe. And I have worked at his castle since then."

"_How long have you known?" Tony asked the only question he could complete after hearing the brunette's shocking words. This news he had not expected, and as many times before, his life was about to change yet again. "I mean," he amended his inquiry. "How come this is the first I'm hearing of it? This is not something that just happens overnight."_

_Maya shrugged, her fingers playing with her fork which she was yet to use to eat anything on her plate. She had suggested for the two of them to go eat out at a nice restaurant for dinner and they had done so even though Tony had been exhausted after a long board meeting with SI. He had, albeit reluctantly, finally accepted after she had told them that it was very important for them to meet because they 'needed to talk.'_

_"I've known for a while, but I didn't get the official notification until last week. I'm due there in three days so I need to start getting ready now."_

_ Tony looked away from her to gather his thoughts. He knew he should be feeling sadness, disappointment, or maybe even relief of some sort, but he was afraid to show any emotion lest this was a way for Maya to coerce him into getting married right now before she left._

_ Even though he had brought it up that night during Scott Summers's birthday party, in the end they had not gone through with getting married then and there. He had gotten cold feet at the last minute and had ended up making it up to her with sex that night. Needless to say, the situation had been rather awkward between them after the failed wedding attempt, and the brunette had been highly disappointed that her plan had not worked as well as she had intended it to. Moreover, her time was now up; her employer had called her back. Immediately and without room for discussion, she was to report to headquarters before midweek._

_ And so was her stepfather, for that matter._

_ "What…" Tony gulped, afraid of the response. "What does that mean for us?"_

_ Maya gave him a sad smile and then looked down at her engagement ring. She wiggled her finger to make the diamond shine against the dim lights of the restaurant before she finally took it off her finger. She held it in between her fingertips, glanced at it with disappointment and then left it on the table by Tony's left hand. _

"_I guess there is no __**us**__, anymore. Not that there ever really was an __**us**__, anyway."_

"He was tired of me failing to become pregnant by Tony," Maya continued. "Doom wanted me to have your baby, to extract the naturally processed Extremis from him – like Aldrich had been trying for decades. But I just couldn't get pregnant from you because you didn't want me to. Extremis did not find me worthy, and the virus had already chosen Pepper as your other half. Shortly after that, we found out Pepper had done in one night what I couldn't do in nearly a year, so his plans changed."

"_So, what are you __**really**__ doing here, Maya?" Tony asked her once he placed the trash bag by the entrance door and he had called housekeeping to come vacuum and mop the rest of the mess. "I don't think you came by just to say 'hi'. Are you here to argue or tell off Pepper because of the baby? Because that's not going to happen on my watch."_

"_Actually, I __**did **__come here just to say: hi. I don't know why you'd think otherwise." She shrugged nonchalantly and walked closer to him. "I thought that you and I had broken up on good terms, Tony. And I never disliked Pepper even though she was all you ever thought about when dating me. I really just wanted to meet the little guy I've heard so much about in the news. He's very cute, by the way. Even with all that powder on him, you can tell that he's your son."_

"When Doom found out about the baby," Maya exhaled deeply, "about James, he first wanted me to extract Extremis from him, which meant killing him to do so. That's why I sent out the crows to your apartment, to warn you of the danger."

_Pepper clenched her eyes and jaw shut to keep another whimper from coming out, but when her body began shivering it was enough for Tony to know that she was as terrified as he was._

_ There before them, written in red letters on the tiny mattress that had once been inside the crib and was now on the floor, was the phrase: __KILL IT OR WE WILL__._

"You moved away and he wasn't very happy about that," Maya said, remembering the punishment she had received for back-talking to Doom upon her return from meeting baby James. "But it did what I wanted it to do. It gave me time to try to find out what I could do for you without letting Doom know about it. It was hard. I'm not even sure if he really doesn't know what I've been doing all this time. But I couldn't let him go through with it. I knew… I knew it would be hard to kill Pepper when I found out she has such a resilient type of Extremis in her. But you… Tony… your Extremis is so easily manipulated because it's not really embedded in you like hers or James's is."

"_My point is: how do you know that Pepper is not responsible for your issue with Extremis?"_

_"Are you stupid?" Tony spat and resisted the urge to throw something at her smiling face. "Pepper would never do this to me! She would never hurt me!"_

_ "Really? Because as far as I know, she's hurt you plenty so far. Didn't she move out of your apartment after you told her you loved her? Didn't she get engaged to Scott and almost married him, knowing that you still wanted to be with her? Didn't she make you forget how you two slept together the night you were supposed to marry me?"_

_"So, what? Those were just misunderstandings. I've hurt her, too, but that doesn't mean she'd purposefully try to hurt me. Besides, she doesn't even know how Extremis works! She wouldn't even KNOW how to do this to me. And if she did know, she wouldn't try to kill me with it."_

_ "Tony, you're so blinded with love… or by what you think is love. Have you ever wondered why or how you fell for her, so hard, so fast? It had never happened to you before but with her… you just lost it. Your world revolves around her in a way that is not healthy. In a way that is not at all… natural."_

_ "Just because no one has loved you like I love her, it doesn't mean it's not real."_

_ "Really?" she repeated. "Extremis made you, for all practical purposes, a computer, Tony, and computers __**can**__ be hacked; manipulated, influenced to simulate whatever we want them to do. A good programmer can make a computer do that and much more; especially if that someone knows the circuitry and systems, in and out – __**especially**__ if that someone will soon become a certified cybersecurity expert. A.K.A. A legal computer hacker."_

_ "What are you trying to say?"_

_ "What Bruce refuses to tell you so that he won't hurt you," Maya said and spared Bruce a glance just to see his face blanch. "That whatever you're suffering from is not biological; it's __**technological**__. Your body is not betraying you, Tony. It's your programming. Your link to Extremis is being hacked by a virus of the computer kind. That's why nothing we've done to help you has worked. Because it's not biology that's screwing with you. It's your wife."_

"And that's why you did it," Tony's words were more of a statement than a question once the memory of that day faded away. "That's why you started controlling me through Extremis."

"Yes," she admitted. "At first, Doom wanted you dead. That was it. But then, when he found out about what Pepper meant to you, she became higher on the kill list. He knew that if she died, it would destroy you – break you. But he also wanted what Aldrich had promised him: a way to cure himself from the damage he had sustained in the explosion that had killed his family. And from the irreparable damage Yogthulu had inflicted on him. And then his second plan occurred to him…"

"Second plan? You mean me using me to kill Rhona Erwin in cold blood?"

Maya shook her head at the inventor. "That was all me, Tony. I was testing the range of control I had on you. It turned out, I had plenty – more than the chemicals I had been feeding you for a while, both before and during the time we lived together, that made you snap at Pepper over nothing. But no. That's not what Doom is aiming for now."

"What does he want now? I mean, other than killing me, my husband and my son, world domination and having the planet named after him," Pepper asked, slowly seeing how almost every terrible thing in their lives for the past five years was all a result of Doom's wrath.

"Doom wants James alive because of his many abilities and for his unusual Extremis combination. We actually already extracted some of his DNA and cured Doom and Aldrich of their ailment. His DNA is precious. It _works_. _He_ is precious. His abilities go beyond what any of us imagined they could be. His DNA can change the world."

"What do you mean?" Pepper asked even though she was afraid of the response. "What can he do?"

"He…" Maya hesitated, not sure where to begin to list what she had learned from their son. "He's strong, like Tony's Extremis-enhanced abilities, but he'll probably be a lot stronger than Tony will ever be. He's smart. Learns fast for his age. He can heal fast, too – faster than you, Pepper. And his body can also learn how to cure anything that afflicts him on the first try rather than in several tries like you, Pepper. He…" Maya swallowed hard. "He can even regrow missing parts of his body… removed parts… _cut_ _off_ parts…"

Everyone in the room snapped up their heads to stare at the brunette with a mix of incredulity, hatred and a need to snap her little neck right here, right now, all wondering how the hell someone could mutilate a baby in the name of science. The silence that followed her confession was long and heavy, and the enraged parents' gaze on her made her feel as if she would suddenly combust where she sat. She was surprised, however, just as everyone else, that neither Tony nor Pepper made any effort to approach her. Yet, the redhead's single comment after the thick quietness was all she needed to know that her time would soon come.

"Too bad y_ou_ can't regrow missing body parts, right, Maya?"

Maya's head hung in shame, not having anything to say to defend herself, but she continued answering Pepper's question nonetheless. "He can also see in all spectrums. At will. He can turn it on and off."

"What?" Tony shook his head. "He can do _what_ now?"

"See in all spectrums. And auras – better than Pepper can. That's how he was able to see Doom roam around your house. Doom wasn't able to hide from him. Doom, he… he's… _intrigued_ by your son."

"Intrigued enough not to kill him while we figure out a way to get him back?" Pepper asked.

"Very much so," Whitney replied with confidence she had been lacking yesterday, to everyone's surprise. "He's an adorable, incredibly sweet little guy. But in the wrong hands and with the wrong guidance, he can do some damage. Some _real _damage. Worse than what we saw happen yesterday. And even then, whatever Doom or James can do together, it wouldn't be as bad as what Tony alone can do."

"But Doom wants me dead, anyway," Tony said, almost bitterly. "I'm not what my son is."

"No, you're not," Whitney admitted. "But Doom, he still wants you alive, Tony. For your gifts that no one can ever replicate."

"Yeah, yeah: specimen 1," Tony scoffed. "Of course he wants me, too."

"It's true," Maya explained. "Tony just wanted to repair his heart and maybe create a link with his suit, but he ended up creating a neurological interface with computers and their systems. In today's world, that is something better than any weapon. Tony's bond with computers can allow him to control any weapon from anywhere, at any time."

"And with AIM's controller chip embedded in people through the Mainframe that Basil Sandhurst created, the one major device that Doom has been rebuilding and enhancing all these years," Maria began, "anyone with the power to control computers can control the world."

"And anyone that can control whomever controls computers," Rhodey said, voicing everyone's thoughts. "Can do, through Tony, whatever they want."

"And that's why Doom still wants Pepper dead," Gene said, piecing together what Maya and Whitney were trying to get at. "Because no matter how mad Tony is, no matter how much hold a corrupted Extremis has on him…"

"Pepper can snap me out of it," Tony finished for Gene before he looked back to stare at Pepper. "I can't harm her. No matter what she does to me. I would never hurt her in anger. Not even to save myself."

"And Doom knows that," Maya said, her eyes now on Pepper. "Every time I tried to corrupt Tony enough to retaliate against Pepper… especially after she had put herself in danger… it never worked. Even when they were apart, even when he was just livid at her, he never let it blind him. He never let it stand in the way of how he felt about her. Even angry, he still listened and did what she said."

"Doom won't kill James or Tony," Whitney stated and closed the distance between herself and the redhead. "But he will kill you, Pepper. If we go to him. If we try to stop him, you're the first one he'll go for. There's no one else left to carry out the bounty since Gene and Happy took care of the last major participants of it, and I took care of Kevin Kowalowski and Mitch Richards."

"Are you kidding me?" Happy asked, throwing his hands in the air. "They were in on it, too?"

"Yes," Whitney nodded and turned from facing Pepper to staring at Happy Hogan. "I took down Kevin, the only normal human member left of AIM after Tony killed all the robotic ones, shortly afterward Kevin tried attacking Pepper in the bathroom of The Boom Boom Room and she left him there… naked and confused. We took him into custody that night and I've been posing as him ever since when I spy on Doom. And I also decommissioned Mitch when he tried to pull a fast one on everyone after he was fired from SI. Mitch heard of the bounty from his cousin: Kevin Kowalowski."

"To put it simply, Miss Potts," Fury eyed the redhead. "Doom is out to get revenge on the world, staring with _you_."

"And you couldn't stop him before?" Rhodey asked, exasperated. "You knew all of this was happening and you didn't stop it before it got out of hand?"

"You talk as if Doctor Doom hasn't given all of us a hard time," Maria Hill snapped. "Don't you think that if we had known and had had the means to stop it, we would have?"

"It seems like you had the chance but you blew it!" Rhodey spat back, not at all caring that he was screaming to his second-in-command leader. "You said he was weak when he first came from wherever he was! You could've stopped him then and there!"

"We didn't know everything at that point! Everything we've told you we gathered over years of intel! And we can't just waltz into Latveria and take him. There are protocols we must follow!"

"Well, to me it sounds like you did know everything, or at least enough to take action," Gene offered. "And protocols only slow things down. If you'd have told me you couldn't get to him, I would've!"

"And he would've killed you on the spot!" Maya cried. "He knows about Makluan science. He studied the rings and he knows how to stop you. You don't stand a chance against him! Not even now with all your ten rings of power!"

"And he knows everything Iron Man is, has and knows," Tony spat viciously and accusatorily towards the geneticist. "Because you told him everything about Iron Man and me. You gave him my specs, didn't you?"

"He threatened to kill my mother, Tony. And he did it anyway, even after I gave up the specs to him. So I designed the one thing that can slow him down. He doesn't know I have it and he doesn't know what I can do with it. It's not strong enough to last for a long battle, but it can buy us some time."

"What would that be?" Pepper snapped. "More of your mutated crows?"

"No," she replied. "A window of opportunity. A way for everyone in this room to avoid being controlled by him when we get to Latveria. And I have the blueprints to his home."

"And you think that's gonna be enough?!" Tony stood from his chair. "My lab is gone and any other places we could've used to prepare to attack Doom are gone! He blew them up because you told him what and where they were!"

"But you can rebuild it," Maya argued. "We have a lab here we made for you! We just need you to bring it to life! It's a replica of the Makluan Temple when I used to visit. It just needs your operating system."

"And then what?" Pepper stood as well and closed her eyes, not wanting to deal with what reading anyone's aura would do to her. "Do you know how long it takes to build weapons? To mass produce them? And, even if we could sneak into Latveria, Doom will know the moment we set foot there."

"And," Rhodey joined. "In case you haven't noticed, Doom may be just one man, but he has resources. Last time we fought him face to face, it was Tony _and_ me and we couldn't even touch him!"

"And then it was Gene, my father and me!" Tony reminded them. "And if it hadn't been by an ACCIDENT, by me leaving the fucking ring in the device he had built and Yogthulu coming for him, he would've killed us! Or at least, the world would've been destroyed by those interdimensional portals he opened!"

"And, correct me if I'm wrong," Gene interjected, "but from everyone in this building, including S.H.I.E.L.D., the only ones that _maybe_ stand a chance against Doom are Tony or me."

"HEY!" Happy snapped. "I can help, too! I'm Iron Man's backup!"

"You can't, Happy," Whitney shook her head. "Gene's partly right."

"Partly?" Gene snarled. "Do you want another one-way trip to _The Void_?"

"What Whitney means," Maya took a step forward, at some point having decided to abandon the comfort of her chair, and stood between Gene and the blonde, "is that no one person can do this. It's going to require a lot of work and coordination, but we _can_ stop him. Doom is relying on his machine to work. He extrapolated the power of the controller chips and made it so that airwaves replicate its properties. If he can, right now, he can take over everyone with the push of a button. But all he can do is to connect them to the Mainframe, wirelessly, accessing everyone's consciousness via televisions, cell phones, radios, satellites, you name it. The problem is –"

"That he can _connect _to them, but he can't _control_ them like that," Tony said. "Basil Sandhurst needed the Mainframe because the waves of the helmet were limited. He needed the helmet, plus the chips in everyone _and _Extremis' neurological interface to make it work. The Mainframe was the middle man and Extremis was the power source."

"Right," Maria Hill agreed. "Doom diminished that inefficiency by changing the device's propagation medium, but for him to be able to mass control everyone in the world, he needs to control you, Tony. I'm surprised that he hasn't done it right now. Extremis is partially awake in you – he should've been able to sense you're alive."

"Then why the hell did you turn it on?" Howard demanded, more than just tired and angry at everything that was coming to light. "Tony's right: you've got no idea what you're doing!"

"We had to turn it on for me to run the last tests on it, and it was only minimal. Its traces can't leave the building we're in at the low intensity that it's currently active. I made sure of that," Maya clarified. "Besides, we need to turn it off again anyway before we go to Latveria to face Doom. There's no way to completely remove Extremis from Tony, but we can switch it off… and hope Doom hasn't figured out a way to turn it on remotely."

"No," Tony shook his head. "If you turn it off, I can't be of much help to anyone. I need Extremis' enhancements to have a chance against Doom!"

"You mean you need Extremis for Doom to control you," Gene spat.

"Not for a while," Maya offered. "What I created are small chips that go in the backs of our necks," she used her left index finger to point to said location. "They prevent these airwaves from affecting our brains. Or at least until they stop working. I haven't been able to get chips to last more than an hour. They end up short-circuiting after the Mainframe's waves hit them nonstop."

"An hour?" Pepper scoffed. "That wouldn't even let us get to the outer walls of Doom's castle."

"Not all of us have to make it all the way inside," Maya said in a grave tone. "Only one. We only need one of us to make it to Doom's main power core room. All of his tech uses it to function, no matter where in the world he is, including his armored suit. The core uses a special type of airwave to power all of his devices. That's why he was able to replicate that power for the Mainframe – because he had done it before. But all of that doesn't matter. If we can shut down his power source, he's nothing more than just an ordinary human. All of his defenses and resources become obsolete."

"So," Rhodey began, "I guess that if that's the source of all his power, it's very secluded and heavily guarded?"

Maya nodded once.

"Then how are we going to make it there in under an hour?" Gene asked, angry that even with his teleportation abilities, not even he could make it past the castle's outer walls.

"We're not," Maya answered. "Our job will be to make sure the one person that can make it there is not harmed while the _only_ person that has ever been in the power core room, leads them there."

"Wait," Tony shook his head. "I thought you said that you had his blueprints. You aren't sure how to get there?!"

"It's bobby-trapped, high tech, traps change every sixty seconds and it takes half an hour to make it to the room – it's beyond me. Beyond any of us. But someone made it there once. That's how I know it actually exists."

"And you expect _us _to make it there?"

"Yes," Maya stated and then watched Tony with eyes so full of pity that it actually made the inventor feel as if his blood had suddenly rushed to his feet.

"How?" Tony asked, not at all pleased with the way the brunette was staring at him right now. "How do we know this is gonna work? How do we even know we'll make it in time?"

Maya took a step towards Tony, leaving but a foot of distance between them, swallowed hard and finally replied.

"Because the one person that is immune to the Mainframe's mind control powers, even without a chip… is Pepper. She's the one that needs to be guided to the power core to shut it down. And…"

Maya took in a deep breath, eyes never leaving his blue ones, and then finished her response. "And because the only person that has ever seen the power core room, the only one that has… survived _and_ figured out the traps… the person who actually found the room before _I_ even knew it existed… the reason _why_ I know it exists…The _only_ person in the world that can lead Pepper to the room… is your son."

_No._

Tony froze where he stood, unable to see, hear or feel anything other than his rapidly breaking heart – his collapsing hope.

_No!_

Their plan – their only feasible plan – was finally revealed to him, and he wanted nothing more than to repudiate it right now. In the back of his mind, he knew it was a sound plan of action. He knew that based on what they were aware of and the circumstances, it made sense to take that route. Yet, he could not make himself accept it. He could not make his mind consent to the fact that both his son and his wife had to risk their lives for the sake of the world.

_NO!_

The silence in the room was thunderous; everyone's thoughts scrambling to come out but at the same time being stopped by the pain they all felt.

Pain for the inventor.

Pain for redhead.

Pain for all of them.

This was too much. It was simply too much.

Pepper could not believe that the fate of the planet rested on their little army of twelve: Rhodey, Tony, Happy, Gene, Whitney, Maya, Maria, Nick, Widow, Hawkeye and herself – at most – to make it to Latveria, have a toddler lead the way, and rely on her to destroy what she was sure was the root of all evil in the world.

How were they expected to do this? How could anyone in this room think that they could make this plan at all work?

"We'll never make it," Rhodey stated in defeat. "Even if all of S.H.I.E.L.D. went with us… once those airwaves hit us and the chips fail… we're done."

"And that's why it won't be just us," Nick said and stood up as he saw the last of his guests arrive. "That's why I called in some favors. On reinforcements. For help."

"On who?" Gene asked, and when his eyes landed on the new arrivals and his jaw dropped, Pepper could not help but to turn around in place to witness the large amount of individuals that were now standing by the door; some of whom she recognized – most of which she did not.

"Scott?" Pepper uttered and Tony forced himself to break out of his reverie and looked back.

"What?" Tony barely uttered, his mind still in shock. "Who _are_ these people?"

The apparent leader of the group, relying on a _Pep Ride_ to move, of all things, moved forward into view and finally replied. "We, Mr. Stark, go by the name of the X-Men."

* * *

**A/N:** THE END!

Just kidding! Like-y? Review!


	5. Chapter 4

**Guest Review Responses**

**Iron kid: Great as always **– Why, thank you! ^_^ Here's a long overdue chapter. It has a lot of information, but I think we're coming to the end of exposition on the next one.

**Toni: Things look bad. Worse then bad :( The X-men! YYYEEEEESSSSS! Can we expect a reunion with baby James anytime soon? **– The X-Men were my first exposure to Marvel, growing up, and I watched the animated series from beginning to end. I'm a huge Rogue/Gambit shipper, actually and I'm kinda upset that Tatum is playing him in the movie. Oh, well, I guess I have to wait and see how he does. Annnnd… without spoiling much, we won't see baby James for now :(

**Guest: Did you know you are the only reason i watched the series? I loved the Ironman fanfictions and that one from the Avengers. So when you decided to part ways with those fandoms the only way i could read your incredible stories was through this (because not even a good or perfect fiction can fix DC. No offense). Honestley your plots are incredible. Thank you for your hard work. Please keep it up. PS:I won't put a bullet in my head. Not until this is finished. **– OMG! WHAT AN HONOR! This means I so have to make these two years of IMAA stories worth it for you and everyone else. While this won't be my last IMAA story (I have ten waiting!), it's gonna be a while before I go to my other fandoms (I want to back to IM when my IMAA fever stops XD).Pepperony has me hooked for the next decade, at least XD I tried writing for DC (assuming that means DC comics), but it's a hard fandom over there. Probably won't ever do that again :P

**Guest: :Is there anotherl **–Here it be! Sorry for super long wait!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

_A week had gone by since he and Gene had recovered Pepper from the submarine and, despite the efforts of the doctors and everyone else that cared for her, she had given them no signs of a forthcoming awakening. She was still in a coma – or at least that was what the doctors were calling it, for lack of a better word. Her body was still somehow recuperating in the face of arbitrary fluctuations in vitals, body temperature and skin paleness, not to mention her off-the-charts and inexplicable brain activity. Other than not responding to external stimuli, no one had the slightest idea what was in store for her. Her future was as uncertain as was his ability to keep his sanity intact._

**Please, don't leave me, Pep**_, Tony thought, eyes closed, heart tattered to pieces. He was holding his weight on his arms, leaning over the edge of the roof of the Stark International building – the last place he had wanted to be at the moment – wondering if his father would allow him back at the hospital in a few hours, just as he had promised he would. Tony had not left her bedside since Pepper had been admitted to the ICU, but when he himself began passing out in exhaustion and lack of sustenance, Howard had sent him home to eat, bathe and rest for at least half a day._

_ He had, without a hitch, completed the eating and showering tasks in less than half an hour, but slumbering was not an option for him. He had tried catching some shut-eye, but every time he had closed his eyes, his mind's eye had offensively graced him with an image of Pepper in the submarine. For the rest of his life, he was convinced of this, he would always vividly remember how frail she had felt in his arms and how he had feared her dead. He would never fail to recall the feeling of the world crumbling around him when Gene had read the list of injuries the doctors had to cure her of or patch her up from. How someone, anyone – no matter how tough they were built – could survive such a long period of merciless torture and abuse, he did not know._

**How did we get here? How could I've let this happen to her? **

_He opened his eyes and his thoughts were followed by a loud snarl of ire and desperation, just before he turned around in place and saw that he was no longer alone on the roof._

_ "Sorry," the brunette before him said, eyes wide in shock at what she had just beheld. "Was that growl of anger at me being here? Did you come here to be alone? Because I know my way back. I can be out of your hair in no time."_

_ It took Tony a lengthy moment to process her simple words, much longer than it should have taken anyone to do so – especially someone of his high-caliber intellect. Yet, once he did, he shook his head at her and began walking towards the roof access door, not even bothering to stare at her when he waltzed next to her._

_ "No, sorry. I… the roof is all yours."_

_ "Wait!" the young lady called and ran up to stand behind him, his back going rigid the moment her next words left her mouth. "You're Tony Stark, right? I can't believe it's you!"_

_ Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, there are about ten-thousand employees in the building and there's only one of me. But the odds of finding me in my own building are pretty high."_

_ "I know, you live here," the woman said. "I… I'm not stupid, I promise. I just… I get nervous around the guys I like. Or the guy. You."_

_ Tony could not help but to narrow his eyes and half-turn back to stare at her reddening face. Was this chick seriously hitting on him? Was that all she came up here to do? Did she not know he was in all kinds of pain because his would-be, maybe sort-of-was, not-sure-if-she-still-is girlfriend's life was hanging by a thread?_

**No**_, he reminded himself. _**No one knows what Pepper is going through.**

_ "Look, uhm…"_

_ "Maya… Maya Hansen…"_

_ "Right, uhm… Maya, I… I'm sorry, but… I…" he sighed. "I'm not interested."_

_ "Right now?" she ventured, and took a step toward him. "Because I can come back later."_

_ "No!" Tony spat and she flinched. "I mean… I… I don't mean to be rude, but… this is not a good time. For me. At all."_

_ "Oh," Maya pursed her lips briefly before she shrugged lightly and then pulled a card from her purse. She walked up to Tony, stood in front of him and then slid the card inside his left, front jeans' pocket. Tony simply followed her hand movements with his eyes, not once showing any indication that he appreciated what she was doing to him, invading his space as she was._

_ "Are you a salesperson or a reporter?" Tony finally asked with a frown._

_ "Neither," she replied and winked at him. "Give me a call when it's the right time. My dad… he works here, so, I'll be around."_

_ She purposely slid the left side of her body against his on her way past him, and after Tony heard the door close behind her, he looked up to the sky and shook his head._

**Seriously? Did a stranger just try to pick me up?**

_"Crazy girl," Tony mumbled in slight anger at the nerve of the young woman. "As if I'll ever ask her out."_

_ After another shake of his head and enough minutes had gone by to guarantee she was gone and that he would not encounter her on the stairs, Tony returned to the penthouse to suit up and return to the only woman that he believed deserved his heart._

xxxXXXxxx

An exact replica of their now destroyed Makluan Temple lab, it surely was; down to the smallest of specs of their equipment, to their surprise. Just as Maya Hansen had promised them, though, the lab was nothing but a diamond-in-the-rough shell. Or at least it had been, until moments ago, when the SOS – the _Stark Operating System_ – had been installed on the machines via the USB drive that Pepper had brought back with her just before the actual lab had been annihilated.

It was ironic, if one thought about it, that the same USB drive that the redhead had once used to host _Private Eye_ had been repurposed to hold a security backup of the already secured backup of what made the Iron Man lab what it was: a hub of innovation and a technological marvel. It had not taken them too long to get everything up and running to their liking, even if Tony's Extremis was too weak to help with the loading and unpacking of the system. In the end, however, they were just glad to have a practical working place they could call their own, albeit located in the vast foreign environment in which they had been forced to hide.

"Final diagnostics are almost complete," the ginger said with a tilt of the head and two thumbs-up from her location by the main screen of the lab. "We won't have the latest version of the _SOS_ installed here, but this legacy version should do just fine. Besides, as long as when you're rebuilding the suits, you remember to make them backwards-compatible, it should be OK."

Pepper's announcement was followed by Tony's arms _tightly_ wrapping around her waist from behind, and his chin resting on her right shoulder to whisper in her ear.

"Have I ever told you that it turns me on when you talk like that?"

"Like, what?" Pepper frowned in thought. "You mean, like a nerd?"

Tony chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you can call it that. Does it, you know, do the same for you?"

"Oh, Tony," she began as she turned in place, making it so that they faced each other, and she held his face in her hands. "Let's just say that you're lucky that it _doesn't_ turn me off when you do."

Tony was taken aback, but he did not release her.

"What? What do you mean? Are you trying to say that you don't like it when I talk _nerdy_ to you?"

Pepper smiled, hands still on his face, and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. "Just be glad I love you _in spite_ of that."

"Ouch," Tony replied with a minor physical flinch. "You make it sound like nerd talk is all I do."

"Baby," the ginger stood on her tiptoes to better reach his face. "It's the only language you speak."

Pepper followed her response with what she intended to be a quick, innocent peck on his lips; however, it swiftly became everything but that.

Despite the frown on his face, he immediately kissed her back. Despite the current situation, she deepened the kiss and tightened her embrace, if just to forget about all else for a moment. Despite the woes of his world, he felt loved and wanted, and that in her arms he belonged.

It was abnormal to feel like this, to _behave_ like this, in the midst of everything shifting upside down around them. Two days ago, they had opened their eyes to discover a truckload of unwanted alterations in their lives, along with a myriad of important questions that had been answered in a trickle in the past couple of days. Their son was no closer to being brought back to their lives, but he was relatively safe for now. Doom was no closer to being caught, but a plan of action was, in theory, set for him. Everyone on the planet was no closer to being saved from the maniac's wrath, but the senseless attacks on innocent people had ceased for the time being. The young heroes were aware that, at the moment, there was absolutely nothing that could be done that had not already been done or tried, and what could be done or tried in the near future was not ready to be implemented just yet.

Tony systematically slowed down their kissing session to a complete stop, but he kept his face on hers, the skin there randomly caressing the other with almost feather-like touches. Their eyes were still closed, and at some point her arms had ended up circling his waist while his surprisingly rugged hands now surrounded her neck, his thumbs sliding up and down her cheeks. He took slow breaths to fill his lungs with the oxygen he had so willingly deprived them of to avidly kiss the woman before him, and with every inhale and with every little moan of bliss she uttered due to his soft strokes, he became even more entranced by the familiar scent of her breath.

"Know what day it is, Pep?" he whispered to her before he placed a quick kiss to her top lip and carefully nibbled on her bottom one.

"Sunday?" she offered before she felt his lips kiss her again, this time on the side of her mouth, and she felt his nose rub against her cheek as he shook his head to her.

"No. Not what I meant."

She focused on thinking of a serious answer to his question, all the while she enjoyed the closeness of his body to hers: the way his hands were both massaging the back of her neck and giving her goosebumps with the way his thumbs were barely sliding up and down her cheeks, and how his lips continued their incessantly demanding yet gentle assault on her mouth and cheekbones. Even after all these years of knowing each other, of learning and memorizing every square inch of the other's form in every imaginable way, the blue-eyed genius still made her legs turn to jelly, her heart beat faster than she thought it could, and her mind lose the ability to conceive a coherent thought.

After all these years, after all that had happened between them and had at some point separated them, he could still make her feel as nervous, excited and attracted to him as the day they had met for the first time.

_The day we met_, she thought with a grin, finally coming to the same realization as he. _Today is the day we met!_

"Six years," she uttered between his kisses and she then felt him nod.

"Six incredible years," he hummed and kissed her again as if he just could not get enough of her. "Six years since I was lucky enough to meet you."

"Or unlucky enough, depending on who you ask."

"Fuck'em!" Tony replied and Pepper giggled against his lips; his use of expletives still amused her. "All that matters is how_ I_ see it. How _we_ see it. And I see it as the most fortunate day of my life!"

_No, you don't_, her thoughts almost made it out of her lips, even if they were just a quick reflex on her part and not what she knew to be true anymore. A quick reminder of the inventor's innermost experiences that Gene had shared with her, swiftly jogged her memory that Tony stood by every word he had just said, so she held back those hurtful and unfounded words.

"I'm happy that it was," she said instead, knowing that this was real for her. "I'm happy you don't regret meeting me."

"Are you crazy?" he finally pulled away from her face enough to pierce her hazel eyes with his should-be-illegal bright, blue ones; bathed her sight with his most it's-almost-not-fair-it-exists charming smile; and all of it wrapped around his I'm so-happy-I'm-gonna-burst tone of voice. "Why would I regret meeting the love of my life?"

The smile that formed on her face did so slowly, methodically; almost imperceptibly so. But it was fully there in the end.

The love of his life.

That was what he considered her.

The sentiment was shared.

"Because I'm weird and crazy?" she replied, the smile never leaving her face. "Then again, isn't that why you fell for me?"

"Yeah," he nodded and tilted his head towards hers one more time, prompting her to close her eyes and shiver under his provocative ministrations. "That's just why. Among other traits and _talents_ you seem to have."

He held her face in his hands while he kissed her again. This time, however, he did so in a leisurely fashion and not just on the mouth, but all over her face and neck as well. His lips brushed against her skin for a few inches before they stopped to press butterfly kisses where they rested. He continued this seemingly random pattern until his mission had been deemed accomplished: until her entire face and neck had been either kissed or gently caressed by his soft lips.

Tony's hands then slid down her shoulders and arms until they stopped at her waist. He pressed her body firmly against his, dug his face into her neck and began nibbling on the skin there.

"Tony," she threw her head back and tightened her hold on the sides of his waist. Her eyes snapped closed and she bit her bottom lip to muffle the moan that threatened to escape her. "Someone could come in… they could be watching…"

"No, they aren't. Not anymore," Tony replied with confidence before he switched sides to attack the left side of her neck, this time biting a tad harder than usual. "They aren't keeping tabs on us any longer. They know we won't act on our own anymore. Not now that we know what we're up against."

"But —" this time, she could not hold back her moaning that was sadly mixed in with a tiny whimper of discomfort at her husband's roughness. "Tony…"

Even with the almost crippling, rapidly mounting _need_ to reclaim his wife as his, right on the worktable she was pressed against, Tony halted the physical signs that told her what was currently crossing his mind; her small cry of just now snapping him back to reality. He knew this was neither the time nor the place to do what was excruciatingly obvious he was aiming for, but he could sense his pores itching to feel more of her. He _wanted_ her, desperately – almost primally so, and he blamed the recent evolution of her and his Extremis for his growing call to engage in such activities more often than they already did. From one day to the next, having her close was no longer enough for him. In the blink of an eye – literally overnight – he had lost almost all the restraints the human brain placed on one's most basic urges to satisfy the expectations of modesty from society.

Or perhaps, it was simply nothing more than just an instinctive need to rid her of Iceman's advances of earlier in the day. Tony was still surprised he had let the man live after what he had done to the redhead, but it could have not been helped. Hitting on his wife did not equate to a punishment of making a hole in the man's chest. Or head. Or other, lower body parts. Nevertheless, Tony found himself wanting, _craving_, to encase her in his scent and his scent alone; as if he was forever obliged to constantly mark his territory on her.

_Dammit it all! And damn that little shithead!_

He knew he had to stop, though. He knew he _had_ to control himself, for both their sakes. Yet, he felt as if keeping it all at bay at the moment would only make it worse in the long run. He could somehow foresee himself haphazardly releasing this escalating desire for her in ways he feared would put her in danger by just being near him. He feared for her safety. He feared he would hurt her out of passion-driven thirst.

"Don't be afraid. I feel it too," she suddenly muttered and he froze. He then pulled away from her and took a couple of steps back, a look of total shock coated on his face, feeling embarrassed that she was a clear witness to his inner turmoil. Was she able to read his thoughts, too? Was Extremis now connecting their brains? What else did she know about his musings?

"I can see it," she continued, seeing a shedload of questions run over his face, "it's all around you."

Her eyes expanded for a second to ratify her suspicions that she was becoming exceptionally in tune with Tony's aura changes – more so than anyone else's and without having to be under duress. She was not entirely sure if this was a positive or a negative side effect of Extremis, but there was nothing to prevent it from evolving, at this rate.

"I can feel it, Tony," she assured him. "As much as you do. And it's OK."

Tony closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and then took in a long and deep breath he exhaled through his mouth. "I'm sorry. I'll get a lid on it. I promise."

"Just for now," she took a step towards him and shrugged with only her right shoulder. "I kinda like it."

Tony chuckled nervously, shook his head and then rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand. She was not making it easier on him, if that was what she was aiming to do. The expression on her face and the purring tone in which she had uttered those tempting words to him were hurting more than they were soothing his current urges towards her. He thought he had hurt her, and maybe he had, but sometimes hurting was actually not terribly bad.

He had some first-hand, memorable experiences in that.

"That's not all I think about, Pepper. You know that, right? There's more to what I feel for you than just… _that_."

"I know," she took another step in his direction and she felt his desire instantly increase yet again. He then opened his eyes, realized her proximity was affecting him, placed an even greater distance between them and then stared at the ceiling.

"Just, give me a sec, Pep," he raised his left palm towards her. "I need to chill. And focus. We have work to do."

He silently counted to ten as he forced less-than-pleasant images to the forefront of his consciousness, but with Pepper standing so close and her natural aroma still permeating his clothes, Tony found it difficult to think straight. On her end, the redhead tilted her head left and right, watched his blatant struggle with half curiosity and half amusement until an idea came to her mind. It was a long shot and it could end up backfiring, but if this aura reading ability that her Extremis had activated since she had woken up was going to be with her for the rest of her life, she might as well try to put it to good use. Besides, she also had Gene's training to rely on, if it came to it.

"Don't move," she ordered him and he stiffened when he noticed her determined look. She raised her palms towards him, narrowed her now dilated eyes and she then began searching and breaking apart what only she – and to a greater extent, their son – could see on him and everyone else.

The sensation of emotional, mental and physical relief was almost immediate in him. He felt his entire body unwind. His mind opened. His soul relaxed. It was almost inspiring, in fact; so he closed his eyes, hung his head and exhaled profoundly through his nose.

She continued her task for another minute or so, taking calculated steps toward him as she did, unsure herself of how she was even accomplishing this at all. Once her own stress reduced along with his, she smiled in triumph and dropped her arms to her sides.

"There you go," she uttered and he opened his eyes once more. "Ready to work now?"

"Yeah, I actually am," he said with a bright smile and a shake of his now loose arms and shoulders. He then placed a quick kiss on her lips, walked around her and towards the main computer screen and began running a search. "And I know just where to start."

"Oh?" her left eyebrow lifted in wonder as she stood next to him. She waited patiently for the query he had just input to be completed and she then scrutinized the schematic he had just pulled up.

"The _Earth Movers_?" she frowned.

"Yup," he grinned.

"Why the _Earth Movers_?"

"Because_ that's_ how we're sneaking in to Latveria, Pep," he double-tapped the screen to pull up the list of materials they needed to bring life to this project. "Underground."

"Under… ground…" Pepper's voice lowered as she finished the word and her hand ended on her lips, his idea becoming clear to her.

The _Earth Movers_ and their latest upgrades; the ones Tony had completed earlier this year to increase the traveling capability of said devices, were the answer to closing in to Castle Doom, nearly undetected until the last possible moment. The modified _Earth Movers_, the ones that were smaller, more precise and powered by an altered ARC reactor that allowed them to excavate deep belowground for years, nonstop, even in the harshest of conditions.

The _Earth Movers_: the least expected technological equipment that anyone would have thought to use to carry out their plans.

The _Earth Movers_: their sure ticket to Latveria and the living proof that Tony Stark's – that Iron Man's _persona_ – was finally coming back and was getting ready to fight.

"You're a freakin' genius, Tony," Pepper said with a proud smile, for the first time seeing the possibilities that Tony had already mapped out in his mind.

"I already knew that," he deadpanned with his typical yet not-seen-in-a-while arrogance, his attention now fully invested in the task at hand.

Pepper smirked while she witnessed with welcomed nostalgia a glimpse of her blue-eyed boy's antics from the past, the same ones she never thought she would ever miss until now.

_Yup, _she closed her eyes_. He's definitely back._

xxxXXXxxx

_Even as he neared a century of age – and even if he did not look older than his twenties and he had seen the rapid technological progress of mankind – he still found society to be as pathetic as the day he had been born. It did not matter that mankind had visited the moon, traveled by hybrid vehicles, had small, portable high-tech computers that they stupidly called 'smartphones,' or that they spoke of ending war, ignorance and hunger as if the eradication of these social issues were the answer to all of their prayers. Humans, as a whole, were pitiful, selfish, materialistic creatures, always seeking to have the most of everything, for the sake of saying that they did even if they just piled these material things in their overly expensive homes._

_ He was beyond that, however; he was certain of it. He had no desire for owning state-of-the-art big screen televisions or computerized wristbands; for engaging in the execution of social justice movements or trying out the latest diet fad. He could not care less about the environment, the equality of the sexes, or even if there was life on Mars. All Ronnie Hartford wanted out of life was life itself._

**Ronnie Hartford**_, he scoffed. He could not remember the last time he had gone by that name._

_ Ronnie Hartford, AKA Aldrich Killian's eyes returned to the work before him. Thanks to an increase in funding from S.H.I.E.L.D., he was closer than ever to finding the next step in evolution for mankind – only for those he deemed worthy, of course. It had been years since his last attempt at procreating a new specifies of Homo sapiens, one that was immune to the perils of natural death and ravaging illnesses, and it was not until recently that the light at the end of the tunnel shone its brightest. Aldrich Killian could foresee the future, and in this future, he was the new giver of life to mankind._

_ One of the latest devices he had designed was a portable and slightly powerful radar for people like him: people with Extremis within them. He knew, if he were honest with himself, that he was the only species of his kind in the world – not counting the failed experiment that had been Agent Mallen – so the device seemed rather pointless. In the long run, however, he knew that said device would be the only thing that would allow him to determine who needed to be exterminated for not being worthy of carrying Extremis, and who was blessed with being in the strong ranks._

_ Besides, if he was soon to start experimenting on humans once more, he needed to make sure that he could easily and quickly identify those who were successful specimens from those who deserved to die. As such, when said device suddenly sent a signal to his cell phone and said item began to chime, Aldrich could not help the look of shock on his face._

_ "What the hell?" he whispered so as not to catch the attention of his colleagues working nearby. His eyes blinked several times in astonishment while he read the clear and to the point message on his phone's screen._

**SPECIMEN WITHIN RANGE. TYPE OF EXTREMIS: UNCLASSIFIED.**

_ "Unclassified?" he again whispered and tapped on the message to show the present location of the Extremis carrier. His device could pinpoint the particular and almost untraceable heatwaves that Extremis-hosting individuals gave off, within a 25-mile radius of Aldrich's current location, and unless the damned thing was malfunctioning and it was simply identifying himself or the new sample of the virus he had under the microscope in front of him, then someone, somehow, had been contaminated or injected with the virus without his authorization._

**Is Agent Mallen around?**_ Aldrich mused before the map showed that the Extremis carrier was within 15 feet of him and was quickly approaching his lab._

_ Killian raised his eyes and reservedly looked through the one-way view glass wall that separated the lab from the hall. His eyes narrowed in curiosity as he held his phone in his hand and walked closer to the young couple standing on the other side of the glass wall, completely oblivious to his being there. On his way to his destination, he picked up the small Extremis radar that had sent the signal to his mobile device and, once he reached the edge of the wall and he stood almost face-to-face with the individual that appeared to carry Extremis, Aldrich's mouth turned into a wide smile._

**Well, I'll be!**

_ Standing before him, unaware of his presence due to the polarized window, was none other than Tony Stark. He was speaking animatedly with a young, redheaded woman in crutches, and she seemed to be as into the conversation as the young genius seemed to be. For good measure, Aldrich used the radar to discreetly scan Tony's body, and when the device confirmed once again that the billionaire was an Extremis specimen, the scientist almost laughed._

**How ironic**_, Killian thought. _**The child of the woman that leaped my research forward ends up becoming a sample after all. Oh, Maria would be so devastated by this!**

_ Aldrich could not believe his luck! The previously unknown carrier was standing right before him, unaware that his creator was just a few feet from where he stood; unaware of the possibilities he had just unveiled for his research. Maybe Maya's attraction to this boy was not as farfetched as he had thought it was. Maybe his stepdaughter's stupid and silly crush on the young genius would be his ticket to finally curing his ailment and all of those that paid the high price._

_ Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to take the offer of the madman from Latveria – the one that had furnished the plans for the Extremis-detecting device._

xxxXXXxxx

In all the years he had expended training at the Air Force Academy, concurrently completing his undergraduate degree, and then throughout the exceptionally demanding S.H.I.E.L.D. New Agent Boot Camp, James Rhodes had never felt as much emotionally draining and physically exhausting ache as the one he felt at the moment. It was as if years upon years of repressed emotions had just sat within him, marinated for half a decade, and had suddenly decided that it was time to kill him from the inside out.

Yes. That was the finest depiction for it: a bursting mass of pent-up frustration willing itself to come to the surface; great enough that no amount of constantly punching a sand-filled bag, that Happy Hogan had been holding for him for two hours, made any difference whatsoever.

The more his fists dug into the unyielding piece of workout equipment, the more exasperated he became. He felt liable for his friends' current state of affairs, even if he had had nothing to do with it in the least – even if there had been nothing he could have done to prevent it despite his best efforts in the event that he had somehow found out about its workings.

Still, guilt was eating him alive.

Rhodey recalled seeing the strange papers in Pepper's new home when he had gone to visit her; the same papers that blamed Tony for his son's death – an act that Rhodey always found difficult to believe even if for a moment he had been utterly pissed at him for it. While it was true that he had found some irregularities in the reporting of his namesake's clinical analysis by S.H.I.E.L.D., it never occurred to him that those non-protocol steps Maria Hill had undertaken when baby James had last been on the Helicarrier in company of his parents' request would have led to this.

He recalled how he had forced sleep on an exhausted Pepper by the worst of ways: secretly drugging her, and while she had slept he had read Tony's letters to her and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s death report on his _nephew_. He had meddled by reviewing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database, and he had questioned Tony nonstop about his and Pepper's actions. He had been honest and brutal and somewhat cruel about it with both of his friends. But even now, he did not regret any of it. He had done what needed to be done – what Pepper had needed to get back on her feet, and what Tony had required to let go of his guilt. And just as then and every time the opportunity presented itself, he would again do whatever was needed of him to help and protect his friends at all costs.

_But I let their kid be taken! _His mind was quick to remind him of that fact._ I let S.H.I.E.L.D. injure him! Even if didn't know it then, I let it all happen!_

Then again, by that reasoning, everyone had a small amount of fault in the matter: Tony had not suspected anything of James' visit to the Helicarrier either, until Pepper had pointed it out; Pepper had not suspected anything right away, until it was too late to undo the damage. No one had actually seen any ill intent on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cooperation in scanning James H. Stark for uncommon biological behaviors. No one. Absolutely no one but the perpetrators themselves knew of the ulterior motives they were to carry out.

If so, if nobody could have seen it coming, then _why_ did he feel as if _he_ should have known better? Was it simply because he worked for S.H.I.E.L.D.? Was it because he was part of the association that had strategized to send off his friends to a world war against their consent? Was it because he was supposed to work for a spy organization that was, in theory, always aware of everything in the world?

Or was it simply because, even after all of this, Tony and Pepper did not blame him for any of it?

"UGH!" Rhodey's cry of anger would have been followed by another strong punch had Happy not moved away the punching bag from arm's reach, leaving the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent hitting nothing but air.

"What the hell, Happy?" Rhodey spat and wiped the sweat of his brow with the back of his bandaged left hand. "I'm not done yet!"

"I think you are," Happy replied in his classic nonchalant, no nonsense tone of voice. "If you don't fucking chill and take a break, you better hope we don't gotta go fight the Doc tomorrow. You won't even be able to put on the suit with your arms sore like they're already gonna be."

"The suit is automated, Happy," Rhodey rubbed his nose with thumb, grateful that he always preferred to box without gloves. "'Sides, I've had worse."

"Worse? Than Doom?" Happy shook his head, scoffed in mocking incredulity and continued to tightly hold onto the bag that Rhodey kept trying to jerk from him. "I don't think so."

"Happy, I'm not doing this with you. Let. The bag. _Go_."

"No. Fucking. _Way_."

"Happy!" Rhodey growled. "I don't have time for these games, alright? Either hold the bag for me or fuck off!"

"I think he means it, Happy," a third, female voice said. "I can see the big vein on his forehead popping, from way over here."

Both men snapped their heads towards the entrance of the gym and, as if previously choreographed, they both narrowed their eyes at the newcomer. The mounting tension in the room had already been thick enough to cut with an old, rusty dull knife, but the new load of latent hostility that was now hurriedly satiating the room left both youngsters wishing their argument over a punching bag was all they had to be concerned about at the moment.

"Whitney," her name in Rhodey's voice sounded almost acidic – as if the mere uttering of her name invited a sour taste to fill his taste buds. It did not matter to him that he had once had an unrequited crush on the blonde while in high school. It did not make any difference to him that Pepper had forgiven her for her actions while under the influence of Madame Masque, or that Tony had decided to act as if she was dead to him despite the history of their old childhood friendship. The moment she had turned on them; the decision she had made to attack them while almost killing Tony's father, had been the last chance he had given the woman to redeem herself.

James Rhodes had never thought that Whitney would go to such great lengths to exert revenge on Tony for something he had not had any control over, but she had done the deed and had almost succeeded in ending Howard Stark's life, along with his and Pepper's. Moreover, in spite of her previous actions and before it had all occurred, no one had even considered that the blonde would be capable of doing what she had later done to Pepper, either.

But she had.

Whitney Stane, deranged rich girl, had nearly killed Rhodey's _sister-from-another-mister, _who was also his _brother-from-another-mother's_ beloved wife, in the most foulest and painful of ways.

Rhodey would _never_ forget that.

"Happy," Whitney eyed the former jock. "Do you mind giving us a minute?"

Hogan's eyes shifted from glaring at hers to silently conversing with Rhodey. It only took a few seconds, but after a silent pact was reached amongst the two friends, Happy agreed to give them some space, but not before he gave the woman a quiet warning with a long look up and down her body, as if daring her to give him one good reason to break her little neck, right on the spot.

Happy Hogan was not a vengeful man or even a murderer – he had not killed a soul while filling in as Iron Man or while acting as Pepper's bodyguard, no matter how much damage the enemies had caused or in how much actual danger anybody had been. Nevertheless, if there was one thing that Harold had learned from his collaboration with Team Iron Man and now with S.H.I.E.L.D., was that soiling his hands with someone's blood was a viable option when it came down to protecting the people he loved. And Happy loved his friends; and the woman before him was no longer one of them.

Hell! He considered Scott Summers to be a closer friend to him than Whitney Stane could ever amount to become once more! At this rate, actually, he would probably choose to hang out with Bobby Drake before having any type of amicable conversation with the Stane girl.

In fact, now that he thought about it even further, he would much rather befriend the overflowing trash container he was walking by on his way out of the gym than making friends with Whitney ever again. Happy could not fathom what Whitney could want to talk to Rhodey about in private, but he would make sure not to be too far away from them in the event that a case of the crazies decided to take over the blonde.

Knowing that Happy was now away from hearing range, Whitney ran her left palm down the punching bag the jock had been holding for Rhodes, for a second feeling her own arms burn in ghostlike fatigue while recalling the long and tough training sessions Black Widow had put her through. She had cracked one too many fingers and knuckles while attempting to learn how to properly punch something or someone swiftly, without protection, and with frightening precision, but she had seen with her own eyes that all that agony of the drills had been worth it in the end. She was closer than ever to aiding Tony and Pepper in the rescue of their son and saving the world. And even if that act alone would never make their friendship be what it had once been, she would only then be comfortable enough to state with almost full confidence that she had made amends with herself for what she had done to the both of them.

Yet, when it came to options for patching things up with Rhodey, she had drawn a blank. There was absolutely nothing she could think of doing that would restore the connection they had once had; save from going back in time and never doing anything evil at all. And she, many times, craved the chance to do just that: to undo the consequences of her past actions and magically improve her previous life. She achingly desired, so fucking much, to bring back the old times, especially now that she realized what she had missed out on by being a spoiled brat who only thought about her own wellbeing.

After several years under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s tutelage, she at last saw the error of her ways; the distorted view of life she had once harbored within her as a result of her pitiable upbringing – the same biased view that had made her an easy prey to the mask's effect. She had learned, painfully and ashamedly, that the world owed her nothing, cared nothing for her, and that it did not revolve around her and her needs. She had finally understood that not everything was about her, and that if Tony had never truly cared for her in the way she had always cared for him, it was no one's fault – especially not Pepper's. The heart listened to no one but itself and, in her case, Tony's heart had never belonged to her. Before the genius had even known it himself, Whitney had rapidly and sadly recognized that Tony's heart had chosen Pepper to care for. Whitney had always known that the redhead was very special to the blue-eyed boy, and once she had seen how special she truly was to him, her own world had shattered.

Tony Stark had not only just liked Pepper Potts, but he had become deeply and madly in love with her.

Even now, years after making her peace with it, it still hurt. It would always hurt, she knew, for she had been honestly in love with him as well, all of her life.

Yet, the past was in the past. And she _had_ moved on.

"I can hold the bag for you," she finally said after a long silence as she grabbed the bag in her hands, a small yet hopeful smile on her face.

"What do you want, _Stane_?" Rhodey crossed his arms over his chest as a response to her offer, leaving no doubt in her that this conversation was going to be more difficult than she had already anticipated it would be.

"Rhodey –"

"Rhodes," he corrected her. "Name's Rhodes, and that'll be Agent Rhodes to you, _Agent_ Stane."

Whitney opened her mouth with the intention of referring to him by his nickname once more, blatantly disregarding his request, but a glance towards his unyielding face told her to do as she was told, even if he had no authority over her. While it was true that she had been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent a lot longer than he had – and by that fact alone she outranked him in seniority – they were still technically at the same level as far as pay grade was concerned. Their assignments were poles apart: she was a spy and he was a soldier, but their equal classification remained intact.

Besides, Rhodey had been her friend too at one time, and if she wanted to try to reestablish some kind of peaceful cooperation with the one person who was level-headed enough to not let his hatred of her past actions cloud his judgement in the field, it would be best to start by doing as he instructed.

"Agent Rhodes," the blonde began and shifted her relaxed position to stand at an attention posture: her legs slightly parted, her shoulders squared, her hands behind her straight back. "I figured that since you and I will be working closely together from now on, that we should perhaps find a way to do so without our… _mutual_ personal affairs getting in the way. Don't you think?"

Rhodey raised a single eyebrow and chuckled in mockery. "Mutual personal affairs?" he shook his head. "Agent Stane: are you under the incorrect impression that there's _anything_ personal between us? Because, as far as I'm concerned, you're just another breathing soul here. Your presence, or lack thereof, means nothing to me."

Even though she felt something break inside of her at his harsh words, her face remained unchanged, nearly neutral. This _was_ what she had been trained to do, after all: engage in false appearances and deceit. But this did not mean that her emotions were gone. She could still be hurt. She could still cry in sadness. And she did so quite often, if she were honest with herself.

Her quizzical orbs continued staring at his enraged ones for as long as the silence between them lasted. In the end and to her surprise, after several minutes of quiet stillness, Rhodey was the first one to break eye contact with her. He gave his back to her and began removing the bandages from his hands, clearly seeing no point in continuing his training business. Whitney watched his actions with interest, and as he kneeled down onto the floor to put away his belongings into his gym bag, the blonde grinned.

"You still trust me," she stated and noticed Rhodey's entire form turn rigid. She waited a few seconds for him to make any retort, but when he simply continued to store his boxing equipment in the bag, Whitney expanded on her thoughts.

"You're giving your back to me," she took a step towards him. "You know better than to do that to someone you don't trust. It's basic training for us, Agent Rhodes."

James pursed his lips, finished shoving his personal effects into the bag, zipped it closed and then stood up. He swung the single strap over his shoulder and across his chest, gave the area around him a quick look to make sure he did not forget anything, and then headed towards the door. As he walked by Whitney's standing form, he took no more than two steps away from her before he quickly spun around, surrounded her neck with his left arm and bent her right arm with his own, putting her in a chokehold that sent waves of pain down her back and that threatened to break her neck if she were to try to make the wrong move.

"I guess you forgot some of the lessons they teach you in training. There's another type of person we can give our backs to, Agent Stane: the ones that we know we can take."

Whitney tried to speak but Rhodey tightened his grip on her, telling her with this gesture that her words were neither needed nor required at the moment.

"I don't trust you. I don't like you. I don't care for you. And if you ever speak to me again without a good reason, you bet your sorry ass I won't be as generous as I'm being right now."

The blonde agent tried to pathetically scratch herself free of his hold, somewhat still in shock that Rhodey had pulled an old trick on her she should have been able to avoid, but her efforts were in vain. She had both speed and the element of surprise working in her favor, and her mask could give her strength enough to trade blows with Iron Man in hand-to-hand combat. But she was not wearing her mask, and when all was said and done, Rhodey was much stronger than she could ever hope to be.

"Stay away from me and my family," he growled in her ear. "You've been warned."

She instantly fell to her knees like a bag of bricks when he released her. Her hands flew to her neck and she took deep breaths amidst her painful coughs. Tears of relief and sorrow filled her eyes, and as she looked over her shoulder to watch Rhodey leave the gym room, all she could think about and feel was the emptiness of knowing she had been right; the raw acknowledgment that she still was and would always be all alone.

All alone – just as her father had been when he had been alive.

All alone – just as she would probably die one day, just like he did.

Alone: the one thing she did not want to be.

xxxXXXxxx

_"The X-Men?" Happy frowned. "You mean, like, you used to be men and now you're not?"_

_ A collective sigh emanated from those who knew of the jock's random moments of stupidity, and from those who did not know him that well, a confused stare appeared on their faces. To give him some credit, though, Happy was not as clueless as he used to be when he was in high school. Yet, sometimes, a glimpse of the 'too much muscle, but not so much brain' side of him shone brightly through the darkest of days. It was inevitable, one could say, as Harold 'Happy' Hogan's view on life was much simpler than anyone else he knew. That simplicity in fact, had saved his skin a few times._

_ "No, Happy," Whitney tried patting his arm but he instantly recoiled from her touch. The blonde was not deterred by his action, however, and she continued her explanation as if nothing awkward had just occurred between them. "It's a nickname. The X stands for Xavier, Professor Charles Xavier. Him."_

_ All eyes were now on said man, the one in the floating wheelchair. He was the same gentleman that the trio of heroes had once gotten a hold of to connect with Annie – now Jean Grey. They had had no direct interaction with Charles at all, and the only time they had glanced at him had been when he had fleetingly visited the Tomorrow Academy to invite Jean to his School of Gifted Youngsters. Even when the electronic wheelchair had been commissioned to be made, Tony had not once actually spoken to or met with the man._

_ "That chair…" Tony's voice trailed._

_ "Is marvelous," Charles replied in his British accent. "So much better than the one I used to have."_

_ Rhodey eyed the contraption with curiosity, and when his eyes landed on the traditional Stark Solutions emblem on the bottom right side of the chair, he hummed._

_ "You made that, Tony? Didn't you?"_

_ "I sure did," he replied distractedly, his mind still partially trying to process S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plan against Doom while it also tried to focus on the significance of this moment. The inventor lightly shook his head to clear his thoughts and he then walked closer to Xavier, his eyes admiring his own handiwork as he did so. "The Pep Ride."_

_ "The Pep Ride?" Gene asked with a roll of his eyes. "Gee! I wonder who that chair was named after?"_

_ "Gene," Pepper gave Gene a lopsided smile and a shake of her head. The Mandarin alter ego simply shrugged in response._

_ "How…" Tony cleared his throat and exhaled lightly through his mouth. "How's it working out for you?"_

_ "Perfectly," Xavier answered. "Better than I had ever imagined it would. But, as wonderful as this device is, and as much as I want to thoroughly thank you for making it, that's not what we're here for, I'm afraid."_

_ "Yeah," Tony assented with his head and then sent a nod in Scott's direction to acknowledge the man. The genius' eyes then moved towards Jean Grey, who was standing next to Scott Summers, and he traded a small smile with her. "What are you here for, then?"_

_ "Professor Xavier and his team will assist us in getting all of you to Latveria," Fury supplied. "He's brought his best to escort you to Doom's Castle. The rest of his team has been tasked with either sending reports of the current situation around the world to us or assisting the survivors of the recent attacks."_

_ "Based on the situation at hand," Professor Xavier interjected, "I had to leave some of my other best members behind. Their help will be required elsewhere, if it turns out that the mission is not completed as expected."_

_ "You mean if I fail," Pepper said in a tone of gallant albeit resigned acceptance of responsibility that surprised everyone, even Tony himself. "If I screw up the one chance we have to make this work."_

_ "Pepper," Tony turned around in place and stared at his wife. "It's… It's not like that. It's not all on you, and you know it."_

_ "Most of it is," she said with a shrug, her eyes on his saddened ones. "I'm not opposed to it. I'm not. I'm not afraid it, either. I'm just… let's just say that it's a huge obligation to make peace with right away."_

_ "I must agree with you," Xavier began. "Yet, it's my understanding that Mr. Fury would've not charged you with it had there been any doubts that you could follow through. I don't know you myself, Ms. Potts – Mrs. Stark – but Scott and Jean have shared with me details about your talents that leave me with no uncertainties regarding your ability to execute this important task."_

_ Pepper exhaled through her nostrils and briefly looked away. "Well, we'll see how right anyone is about me when it actually happens, right?"_

_ The Professor gave her a small nod. He then followed the sympathetic gesture with a message only the redhead could hear in her head and which prompted a smile to appear on her face. The quick moment of silence was then interrupted by Scott Summers to introduce the members of the crew – his crew, as the man who sometimes went by the name of Cyclops, was the second-in-command of the X-Men._

"_Most of you already know me," Scott stole a brief glance at Pepper and Tony. "But just in case you don't: I'm Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops," he said this while pointing toward his eyes, which were no longer concealed by his usual sunglasses, but a visor with a red strip of glass in the center that stretched across and concealed both eyes, making it look as if he lived up to his codename._

_ Scott's palm then pointed to the woman on his left as he spoke. "And some of you may also know my wife, Jean Grey."_

_ A few jaws dropped at hearing the news but they quickly recovered when Jean smiled and nodded at everyone._

_ "Here we have Hank McCoy, also known as: Beast," Scott pointed to the half-man, half-ape with blue complexion standing to his right. "He's our medical doctor."_

_ "And a brilliant biochemist and geneticist," Maya said in almost a fangirl voice from behind the inventor and the redhead, both of which were now standing in the middle of the room, separating the X-Men from the rest of the team._

_ "Not to mention delighted poetry writer in tandem, when the right muse arrives, Ms. Hansen," Beast jested and Maya felt her face flush._

_ "This is Remy LeBeau –"_

_ "But I prefer: Gambit," the man said in a rather pronounced Cajun accent before he turned to the woman to his right and smiled to her. "Don't I, _cherie_?"_

_ "Whatever you say, Remy," the woman said and folded her arms over her chest, prompting Cyclops to roll his eyes at the would-be couple, knowing that no one would know that he did._

_ "That's Marie, or Rogue," Scott continued and pointed to the woman with a white patch of hair on her otherwise brunette head, who had just spoken about her male peer. Scott then leaned forward a tad to aim towards one of the two men left and spoke again. _

"_That over there is Kurt Wagner, who also goes by: Nightcrawler."_

_ "Pleasure to meet you, friends," Kurt stated with a bow. Like Beast, he was covered in blue fur, and had a passing resemblance to a demon._

_ "And –" _

_Scott was unable to complete his last introduction as the final member of his team decided to take matters into his own hands and interrupted his speech._

_ "Hey, there! Name's Bobby Drake, how do you do?" _

_In what could only be counted as half a nanosecond, Bobby walked around Professor Xavier, headed directly towards Pepper to hold her hand in his and kissed the back of it, all the while completely ignoring the fact that to do so, he had to slightly push Tony Stark out of the way._

_ "I go by Iceman, because, you know…" Bobby paused for less than a second to use his free hand, back facing down, to create a rather phallus-shaped ice sculpture from the middle of his palm and aimed it towards the redhead, "I'm just as hard."_

_ Pepper's eyebrows rose to her forehead at the man's inappropriate words and actions. Tony's hands turned to fists, he growled in anger and then narrowed his eyes. Yet, before the inventor could do or say anything else, the ice sculpture on Iceman's hand suddenly burst into several smaller pieces, most of them hitting Bobby right in the face, all of it courtesy of Gene Khan. Knowing exactly what had just transpired before them, Pepper's head snapped in the direction where Gene was standing, the move inciting everyone to face the Mandarin as well._

_It was then that every person present noticed the glow in Gene's index and middle fingers on his right hand, said arm partly folded over his left arm, both over his chest._

_ "Name's Gene Khan," the Mandarin deadpanned when the glow in his hand stopped. "And you're not __**that **__hard."_

_ Bobby eyed Gene up and down, as if he were sizing him up and calculating his strength by looks alone. His daring look, however, was halted by Tony regaining his former spot to pull Pepper's hand from Iceman's. Bobby, nevertheless, seemed unfazed by the actions of the blue-eyed boy, and he simply shrugged them off before giving Pepper a more than just indecorous final look from head to toe. _

_ "I like redheads, too," Bobby said to Tony, eyes still on the ginger as he slowly walked away from the duo. "Like them a lot."_

_Pepper's right hand grabbed onto Tony's to keep his rising anger in check and to assure Tony did not jump the ignorant volunteer. Once Bobby returned to the X-Men group and both Scott and Professor Xavier gave him a look that said there would be words of reprimand exchanged later, some of the calm at last returned to them._

"_Well," Howard cleared his throat, "What's next?"_

xxxXXXxxx

"He's sick, you know?"

His wife's random comment pulled his attention from his current task: reviewing the map of the underground island facility they were living in. After their preparations in the lab had come to a conclusion for the day, the couple had decided to bring the rest of their work _home, _in a matter of speaking. In a few days, the billionaire was expected to share the inventory and specs of the available weapons and gadgets to the rest of the team. As such, the redhead was presently analyzing her half of the inventory on a laptop while Tony perused possible routes that could get them from their current location to Latveria.

The agents and allies that were still above ground were gradually sending updated statuses of the world's current roads and available travel means to S.H.I.E.L.D. in the hopes of aiding them in determining the best way to get from Muir Island to Eastern Europe. Although the North Sea and numerous mountain ranges separated them from the main European continent, it was the harsh conditions in Latveria that worried Tony the most. If traveled by regular highway, the distance between Muir Island and Latveria was nearly 1700 miles. The entire trip, using conventional means and roads and without stops, would take them little over a day. Nonetheless, _traditional_, _conventional_ and_ regular_ were words that could not be used to describe this trip.

He knew that once they left the UK, landed in Europe and arrived in Latveria, the _Earth Movers_ would perform their job underground with little to no issue, but mobilizing an entire army and said small devices without being noticed before arriving to their destination was going to be his greatest challenge thus far. They were yet to tally the actual size of the resistance army against Doom's plan for world domination. The final count would undoubtedly dictate when they would leave, how much and which weapons they would bring with them, how they would get them there, how they would cross the ocean, get to Latveria, team up, and how exactly would the _Earth Movers_ help them get the job done. It would have been much easier for them if they had chosen a covert structure somewhere already on the mainland, but he could see that the options for remaining out of sight from Doom were quite limited.

Moreover, where else would they have been able to store such advanced technology without being suspicious about it to anyone than in the believed-abandoned yet well-known Mutant Research Center in northern Scotland? Dr. Moira MacTaggert, the owner of the facility, had been kind enough to lend it to them – thanks to Professor Charles Xavier's influence, it appeared – and as such, the _beggars can't be choosers_ phrase seemed to apply. There was no other possible way that S.H.I.E.L.D. would have been able to provide him with the raw materials he needed to rebuild their armors and other essential tools. Muir Island was the perfect location for inconspicuous technological development and storage while staying off of Doctor Doom's radar for the most amount of time, of that Tony was now sure.

"Who's sick?" the inventor tilted his head to the right from his position on the bed as he stared at Pepper's sitting form on the floor of their quarters.

"Fury," she replied with a shrug, her eyes still on the laptop's screen. "Not sure what it is, but I saw it on him. In him. Something like that."

"With the aura thing?"

"Yup," she nodded and spared him a quick glance. "I guess it beats an MRI, huh?"

"Guess so," Tony chuckled, but he then turned serious and snapped his fingers when an idea came to him. "Hey! Maybe we can replicate your ability and create a medical device even more advanced than MRI and CAT scan machines combined! Like, an all-in-one!"

Pepper gave him a soft, yet disbelieving look. "Really? Breakthrough innovation thinking, right now?"

"Oh," he began, his head recoiled. "Yeah, sorry. Just habit, you know?"

"I know, Tony. It's a good idea… but…"

"Now is not the time."

"Right."

The redhead returned her attention to the laptop, and the genius to the map. Any other day, he would have chosen a GPS device over a large, bulky paper map, but with most satellites down worldwide, they had to resort to old school tools for now. Tony knew that his _Stark 1_ satellite, if it was still active despite the Makluan Temple exploding, could have made the travel plans so much easier for them. However, by now it was nearly idiotic to use anything that carried his name and brought attention to their current whereabouts. He had the slight suspicion that Doom knew that he and Pepper were alive and, knowing Doctor Doom, it was also rather plausible that he knew about their little brigade as well; the fact that the island had been attacked as well was a major indication that this was the case. However, only a couple of days had passed since his unconcealed attack to the world's major cities and landmarks, and if he had not bothered to do more than lightly bomb Muir Island, perhaps only believing it to be another S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost, it was possible that the almighty Doctor had no idea where to start searching for them.

_Even if he did know where we are_, Tony mused, _there isn't shit we can do about it right now. If he uses the Mainframe… if he controls my Extremis… it's game over before it began._

With such a defeating and rather crushing deliberation in mind, his soul searched for some sort of temporary respite by leading his eyes to shift from tending to the overly complex map of Europe on the bed to watching Pepper at work; said redhead too enveloped in her own task to notice his contemplating gaze on her. He watched her movements carefully; her quickly-changing face gestures telling a current, play-by-play story of her mind. In a matter of seconds, her eyes, brows and lips displayed how she went from confused to surprised to intrigued and then to satisfied, only to then start the cycle all over again. Tony knew that she was supposed to be just reviewing the available inventory and determining which decommissioned weapons would serve them best against Doom, but knowing her and how she operated – very similar to how he worked himself – Tony was confident that she was also plotting and pre-planning the final attack.

_I love you._

His single thought, while it always brought a smile to his face, did not fully encompass how he felt about her – how he would _always_ feel about her, even when he inevitably forgot everything about himself in the hands of Doctor Doom.

_Don't think about that now_, he chastised himself. _Don't worry about_ _what hasn't even happened yet! Don't worry about what you can't change!_

Or could he?

He shook his head and returned his attention to the map. He continued modifying its original paths to reflect the aftermath of Doom's attack. Major roads were either impassable, temporarily blocked or simply not there anymore. Sadly, most everyone involved in this operation was not very familiar with the European roads and means of transportation, and save for Maya Hansen, who _had_ in fact lived in Latveria for a few years; and for Nightcrawler, who had been born and had lived in Germany, there was no telling how quickly they could act in the face of changing infrastructure.

The last time Tony Stark had been on the European mainland, he had been very young, barely more than an infant, too young for that one visit to have any impact on this mission. Maria and Howard had brought him to Tony's grandparents' (on Maria's side of the family) gravesite in Italy, to have them _meet_ the little guy. It was a few years later that Maria Stark passed – or, to be exact, was _murdered_ by Aldrich Killian. Several years after that, the plane crash in which Howard Stark had apparently died and due to which Tony had earned his chest arc reactor, had taken place.

Tony sighed inwardly at the realization that his entire life resembled one giant soap opera. He was not blind to the fact that everyone had problems despite one's background, origin, financial standing, nationality, gender, or any other set of beliefs or identifiers. Yet, he doubted that anyone else had to deal with the same obstacles his family had come in contact with. His family's misfortune had been extended to anyone he got close to, friends and enemies alike, and for that he felt immense guilt. It was the same feeling that had almost completely overcome him this morning, when he had heard what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ultimate plan for stopping Doom was: sending Pepper and Howie to his enemy's version of _The Temple of Doom_.

Even with everything and everyone that was slowly coming together to help them out, Tony knew that the outcome of a war against Doom was as uncertain as Mother Nature seemed to be at times. There was no telling what else Doom had planned or had hidden under his sleeve, and Tony was yet to be entirely convinced that Maya was really on their side. What if sending Maya here to lead this undertaking against Doom was only a ruse and part of Doom's plan? What if everyone turned against them at the last possible second? What if this was just for show?

And all of these overbearing insecurities and worries were not counting a fact which the blue-eyed inventor had become aware of this morning, right as he had been left to ponder everything they had learned about Doom's status and plan. It had hit him, right in the face, like a sudden splash of iced water. Sooner rather later, he would be forced to confront Nick Fury about it, even if just to make sure the head of the spy organization knew he was not without sin – and without responsibility for what he had in mind.

Nonetheless, and for now, there was no stopping it – it was already under effect, he was sure, and Tony did not even have the will to try to circumvent it. For now, his focus was on strategizing the massive operation, organizing the army that had been gathered, and enjoy the company of his wife. His wife, who was rubbing her face with her hands at the present moment.

"My eyes are crossing," the ginger said as she blinked several times. "I think it's time to look away from this screen for now."

"Want to trade?" Tony offered and pointed to the map. "This is so pointless right now that I'm wishing I could just remove the Alps with an eraser."

"The Alps?" Pepper stood up from the floor, closed the lid of the laptop to set it to sleep, and placed it on a small table by the corner of the crammed room. "Do we have to go through them?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Tony replied and scooted over so that the redhead sat next to him on the bed. "It all depends on which routes are left and which ones we can take without calling much attention to ourselves."

"Too bad we can't just fly there," Pepper sighed, her eyes quickly scanning the map and seeing what Tony had been challenged with thus far. "Damn! It's like playing Chutes and Ladders with no chutes… and no ladders!"

Tony chuckled at her inadvertent sense of humor that seemed to be enhanced by perilous situations. He gazed at her comical-looking, scrunched up face and silently thanked whoever had made their chance meeting possible. He then placed a hand on her left cheek to redirect her head to his and held it there while he leaned over and kissed her lips briefly. When she opened her eyes again and Tony had pulled away from her, he was still holding onto her face, but he was now also staring at her intently.

"What do you think about all this?"

"Which part?" she asked.

"You. Howie. The power source room."

"Mmhhh," her eyes shifted left and right as she thought of an answer. "I think that if we make it out of this, I should have a freaking city named after me."

"Pepper," he lowered his voice and leaned closer to her face once more. "I'm serious. Are you OK with this?"

"Are you?" she asked in return and he shook his face.

"Of course not, Pep. I could end up losing you. I could end up losing everyone I love. Or worse yet: we could leave Howie an orphan. I don't want that for our son."

Pepper furrowed her brow, slowly pulled his upper body to hers, and hugged him tightly, the side of her face resting on his right shoulder.

"It's not losing if we give it up first," she said to him. "It's not losing if we take the bastard with us. And Jimmy won't be alone, even if we're gone. But you have to trust me, Tony. Trust me that I can do this. Trust that it's going to turn out alright."

Tony returned the embrace by surrounding her waist with his arms. He too rested his face on her shoulder, and then closed his eyes. "I trust you, Pepper. I know you can do this. That's what scares me."

Pepper frowned at his response, but before she could ask what he had meant by it, he offered an explanation himself.

"In all the years I've known you, you've never given up, ever. Even when it seemed senseless to keep going, you always did, and that's what terrifies me. I know you'll either succeed… or die trying."

"I can say the same about you," she replied. "We are the same when it comes to that. But it's hard to kill me, Tony. Plenty of people have tried. I'm still here."

Tony pulled his head back, arms still around each other, and then licked his lips before he spoke again with a barely audible voice.

"And what if it's me? What if… what if it's me who tries to kill you then?"

Pepper closed her eyes, shook her head and then fixed her eyes on his once more. "Tony… that's not gonna happen. The chips… the chips Maya made for us…"

"Won't last long," he reminded her. "You know that the closer we get to the powered up Mainframe, the less resistant they are."

"But-but… he can't control you, Tony. You… he—"

"Basil Sandhurst controlled me once, the day we met the Hulk, remember? And I wasn't that strong yet. I didn't have Extremis, then."

"So?" she shrugged. "Maybe Maya's wrong. Maybe Doom can't really control you via whatever program thingy he's been cooking up for you. Your will is strong, Tony, and you match Doom in hacking skills," she held his face between her hands. "You-you've been to the Mainframe. You know how vast it is. You broke through it once. You can do it again. And even if Doom tries to make you do horrible things, I know you wouldn't fall for it. Not for long, at least."

"That's… not the point, Pep."

"Then what is?"

"I… I couldn't activate the world's supply of nuclear weapons in the literal blink of an eye back then, when Basil controlled me. But now I can. I can destroy the world in a second, without anything to stop me from doing so."

"Tony, you won't… you…"

"Pepper," he grabbed onto her hands on his face. "I turned myself into the one thing I hate the most: a weapon. You know how I feel about weapons. You know what I'd like you to do to my weapons. Any weapon."

"Tony," she tried to smile but her lips trembled instead. "I'm not… _decommissioning_ you, if that's what you're asking. Your Extremis may be… weaponized… but you're still you. You're still Tony. I'm not… you can't expect me to… to…"

"We talked about this, remember?"

"Tony –"

"We did. I know you remember."

"_I think you would be able to," he replied. "Even if just to defend yourself, I'm sure you'd hurt me to save your life."_

_"Not even then, I don't think," she sighed and opened her eyes. "Nick Fury was right on that. If it came to you going rogue, I'd be the first one you'd kill because I'd be the only one that wouldn't fight back like I should in that situation."_

_ "He told you that?"_

_"Yeah," she nodded. "When he arrested you for the Rhona issue and I went looking for you at the Helicarrier. He said… he said that he had to keep you there because he couldn't guarantee my safety otherwise. He said you were so unstable you would kill me on the spot if you wanted to."_

_ "He's full of shit."_

_ "That's what I thought."_

_ "Like I'd ever hurt you."_

_ "I know. That's what I said."_

_"And even if I did… with the exception of this time… except when the time comes…"_

_ "Yeah?"_

_ "I mean," he exhaled. "It doesn't matter now, but if it had happened, Pepper. If I had lost my mind enough to hurt you… I… I trust you'd kill me first."_

_ "Didn't you hear what I just said? I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it. I know I talk a lot and I say that I'd put on the armor and kick anyone's ass, but to you – to my family. I… there's no chance – no way in hell, I can ever do that. No matter how mad I am. No matter if my life is in danger."_

_ "What about someone else's? How about Howie's?" he asked and she froze. "What if Howie was still alive and I wanted to hurt him? Would you attack me then?"_

_"I-I… I don't know."_

_ "I would expect you to. I wouldn't want to survive that. I'd rather be dead than to be the one who brings him harm. Even if, well… even if I kinda already did by not realizing what was happening in front of me. Even then, I, well… I… I'd rather die knowing that you killed me to save yourself, Pepper, than to live knowing I was the one to end yours."_

_ "But Tony," she closed her eyes once more. "You __**are**__ going to end my life, very soon."_

_"Because you asked me to, and because I don't have to live with it for long. If you weren't giving me permission and I did it, I'd hate myself forever."_

_ "Which is why I wouldn't be able to do it to you. I wouldn't be able to live with myself, either."_

_"Unless I gave you permission, which I have. Again, not that it matters anymore, but you could have always repulsor blasted me to hell if I'd laid a finger on you with the intention to end your life. It was always an option, Pep."_

Pepper closed her eyes and looked down.

"Things were different then, Tony. We thought I was dying. We thought we were up against S.H.I.E.L.D. only. We didn't know about Doom yet."

"Pepper…"

"No, Tony!" she snapped her eyes open. "Don't ask me to do this! I can't!"

"I know you can," he whispered to her and she closed her eyes again. She could not face him, not like this. He was breaking her resolve. She was going to give in to his request. She could feel it. She knew he was right. She knew what he was saying made sense. That did not mean she had to accept it.

He shut his eyes when the silence extended, rested his forehead against hers and then spoke softly to her.

"Don't let me hurt you. If Doom takes over me, don't let me hurt you."

"Tony –"

"Promise me."

"But, Tony…"

"_Promise_ me, Pepper."

"I…" she hesitated. "I promise."

"On our son," he insisted. "Promise me on our son."

The redhead opened her eyes slowly, pulled away from his face and locked eyes with him. They remained quiet for an instant, and when her eyes dilated for a short nanosecond, Tony recognized she was reading him.

What she saw there, she did not like.

There was desperation – a crippling need for reassurance. He expected her to make good on her promise. He expected her to follow through with her mission, no matter what. He expected her to make the call, if it came to that.

What else could she have done, but to agree to it? How else would she have been able to calm his fears?

"I promise," she finally said with a nod. "I promise, on Jimmy."

Tony gave her a small smile before he hugged her again, both lingering in that position for several minutes. There were sweet words spoken, soft caresses exchanged, and by the time Pepper pulled away from him for the nth time, Tony's aura was visibly soother.

"I'm…" she subtly dried a lone tear on her face, a sudden need to get out of the stuffy room invaded her. "I'm gonna go check on my dad. I haven't really spent time with him since we got here and I really need to talk to him. Wanna come?"

"Nah, s'okay, Pep," he shrugged, realizing that in her absence, his next move would be ready for implementation. "I want to keep working, if you don't mind."

"I don't. It's OK," she said with a nod. "I'll be back in a few hours, then."

"I'll be here when you get back."

His left palm rested on the curve of her lower back while she kissed his lips, patted his chest twice with her right palm, and then gave him a small smile before she stood up and headed to the door. Tony watched her with a smile until the door closed. Then, as soon as he had waited enough time so that he knew that she was more than likely far away from their current floor, the genius decided it was now time to confront his inevitable future, once and for all.

xxxXXXxxx

_The centipede-like creature he had recently summoned to exchange personal interests with was not happy at all with the fallout of the deal, and Doctor Doom could have __**not**__ cared at all about Yogthulu's anger had __**he**__ – had Iron Man – not sent him into the creature's dimension before he had realized what had taken place. The jump had been instantaneous, literally unforeseen, and by the time Victor von Doom understood what Iron Man had done to him, there was very little he could do to return to the real world._

_He was stuck. In this dimension. With __**it**__._

"_Release me, vile creature! Or you shall receive no mercy from Doom!"_

_Doctor Doom was not aware that interdimensional creatures could chuckle – or that at least this one did._

"_Nothing but words, human! Nothing but empty threats! This is my world. My home. You have no say in this."_

"_You know not with whom you meddle! I will not be trifled with by the likes of you! I will not –" _

_Doom's initial words were thunderous and confident, more than someone in his position should have been if they wanted to escape with their lives, but it was just who Doom was: arrogant, over-confident and unafraid. Yet, the moment his mind became enraptured in memories of his past – when he saw his beloved Valeria stand before him, smiling and with her arms wide open to him, Victor von Doom had a moment of overbearing hesitation._

_And hesitation of the heart and soul was all Yogthulu needed to start his revenge on the insolent man._

xxxXXXxx

Maria Hill saw the genius strutting down the hall to approach her desk area. His eyes showed his goal of bursting inside her General's office uninvited, and his fists at his sides left no doubt that he would not take _no_ for an answer to the question of whether the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. was available for a talk. One of her most petty tasks in the force was to be the gatekeeper to Nick Fury's office hours, and any other day she would have jumped in between an unwanted guest and the door. Yet, this was Tony Stark they were talking about. Tony did not accept or tolerate obstacles, enemies or 'no's.'

Their eyes crossed paths for a second as he rounded her tall counter and headed to the main door. When he realized the woman did not so much as flinch at his actions, Tony extended his left arm and reached the doorknob with even more confidence than before. He did not even bother to knock or look behind him as he slammed shut and locked the door.

"Let yourself in, Stark," Fury said in his most sarcastic tone, and had he not been tied to his sitting position by Maya's action of injecting his right arm with some black-colored substance, he would had stood before the inventor to try to stare him down. "Why don't you take a seat, while you're at it?"

The brief moment of surprise that shone through Tony's eyes was lost to both the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the brunette, both of whom were more concerned about wrapping up the administration of the day's dose than to provide explanations of their current activities to the inventor. Maya was yet to say anything at all to either of them, and she had no intention of doing so. In the end, she simply put away her tools, walked away from Nick Fury and then silently sped out of the office, all the while ignoring Tony's obvious look of curiosity as he followed her path around the small room with his eyes.

When the woman's only response to his quiet inquiry was to lock the door behind her, Tony decided to look back at Fury with an even more probing look.

"Pepper said you were sick," Tony sat in the only guest chair in the room. "She didn't say you were_ that_ sick."

The young man's tone of voice was relaxed, almost uninterested, and his current pose only reinforced what an individual untrained in bluffing would have assumed to be nonchalant: his forearms were pressed against the armrests of the chair, his left foot was pressed firmly on the floor and his bent right leg had the outer part of its ankle resting against his left knee. All in all, Tony Stark was the spitting image of a man without care, but Nick Fury did not make it to be this old by being naïve.

"I take it that you finally figured it out, didn't you?" Fury asked as he took his own faking-the-calm pose: he pressed his back against the chair, locked his fingers together and rested them on his stomach, and extended his legs under the desk separating the two men.

"Was there any doubt that I would?" Tony calmly replied, knowing that Fury was not talking about his realization of the General's current health.

"Didn't think you'd do it this fast," Fury admitted.

"If you ask me, I should've done it sooner," Tony's eyes briefly gazed to his right, recalling the instant Fury's backup plan should have become clear to him.

"Way sooner, actually," Tony continued after a self-deprecating scoff. "As in, the moment we were told that Doom wouldn't kill me. That he needs me to carry out his fucking plan of taking over the world."

"_We, _plural? When _you_ were told?" Fury's eyebrows rose. "You mean you and the Missus figured it out at the same time?"

"No, only I did," Tony returned his gaze to Fury. "She doesn't know."

"Yet."

"Ever," Tony's tone was firm, but then it immediately faltered. "Or at least, she will not know until… until after whichever one of your lackeys takes the assigned shot at me. If she knows, if she finds out before then, she… she won't let it happen."

Nick observed Tony with quizzical eyes, waiting for what he thought was the actual truth to come out any second now from the blue-eyed young man. Nick Fury waited and waited for the moment when Tony would state that not even S.H.I.E.L.D. could get away with killing the great Anthony Edward Stark, savior of the world, but it never took place. In reality, when Tony continued to stare at him with an unchanged look, and when neither his eyes nor his pose wavered, Fury knew for certain that Tony had accepted his fate as a fact of life.

"I'd be lying if I said I'm not surprised you aren't fighting it," Fury commented. "Not that you'd have a choice in the matter, anyway. You're gonna be so far gone from reality that you won't even know who kills you."

Tony chuckled bitterly and tapped his left fingers on the armrest. "I guess you aren't even gonna tell me who's the lucky person that gets to put a bullet in my head?"

"I can't even guarantee that it will be a bullet," Fury shrugged. "It's bad enough you already know what we'll need to do in case the power core plan fails. In case, you know, your wife and your son fail their part of the mission."

"You insult my intelligence, Nick," Tony sighed cynically. "I know keeping me alive just to kill me when the right time comes has always been your plan. You don't even believe that shutting down Doom's power core will work."

"Ms. Hansen seems to think that it will. I have a few reservations."

"A few? Bullshit!"

"I'm serious. And if you knew what I know, you'd agree with my main reservation that –"

"Forget it," Tony lifted his right hand to stop the man from talking. "I couldn't care less about your reservations, Fury. In fact, you probably shouldn't even tell them to me. That'll just piss me off more. And you don't want to do that because you know that I could bring your entire plan down right now, if I wanted to. If I told Pepper, or Rhodey… hell… maybe even Gene…" Tony inhaled deeply and shook his head. "You'd be better off letting whatever illness you have just kill you right now, if my wife finds out what you plan to do to me."

"But you won't," Fury began after a brief pause. "You won't tell them. Because_ you_ want something in return for letting us kill you."

"Didn't think you were_ that_ smart," Tony gave him a condescending lopsided smirk.

"Don't need to be," Fury hunched over his desk. "When it comes to your family, Tony, you only have two settings: protect or die trying."

The irony that similar words to his own were being spat right back at him – on the same day and on the same topic, at that – was not at all lost to the young billionaire.

Tony rolled his eyes in what could have been considered a playful manner if his face had not suddenly gone somber and his eyes had not turned to slits. The genius slowly stood up from the chair, leaned over the edge of the desk by resting his weight on his palms on the wooden surface to tower over Nick Fury's sitting form, and then spoke in a slow yet calculating tone.

"In that case, _Nick_, I guess you know what I want. What you're gonna _have_ to do for me for this to work."

Fury shook his head at the nerve of the already dead man, pushed himself up from his chair and mirrored the inventor's current threatening pose, dirty look included. Silence was all that could be heard in the room for what felt like forever and a day, and after a long contest of unblinking glaring stares and inaudible name-calling, Nick Fury finally gave up and stood straight.

"Just make sure Potts doesn't find out about it until it's too late, Stark."

"It's _Mrs. Stark_, to you, Nick," Tony corrected the man before he stood straight as well. "And I'll make fucking sure of it."

* * *

**A/N:** Sooo… what do you think? Enough to hold you up until I can update again? SAY THAT IT IS, PLEASE! This story will be the end of me! It's so exciting to be writing it, at last, but I'm not gonna lie that other IMAA fics I have been writing along with this one have me even _more _hooked.

In fact, to get you interested in these future stories (and to shamelessly advertise them, in no particular order), here's a small sample of **one of the ten stories** waiting to be completed and posted for IMAA by yours truly. **DISCLAIMER:** The final draft of the snippets presented to you from now until the end of this story may be different from the officially posted story (whenever I get to that) after all the crazy revisions I put my stories through. These stories are independent from _The Last Chronicles Saga_, but will be as good as them (I hope!).

_**Well, here it is!**_

"I was waiting for you," she uttered from her position by the door, unsure of whether it was still appropriate to invade his space, especially at the moment since he was sitting by the edge of his bed and was yet to look her way.

"I didn't want to bother you," his voice carried over the loud sounds of the storm outside, yet his face still fixated on visualizing through the window the landscape said natural phenomena painted. It was simultaneously both beautiful and frightening, very much so as his life became after that odd night, many years ago.

"You don't bother me," her reply was almost instantaneous, mostly due to the fact that her words were absolute truth.

"It's different now," Tony pointed out and she shook her head even though they were not facing each other.

"No, it's not," she took a couple of steps inside his room towards his current location on the bed. "It's the same. _We_'re still the same."

Tony chuckled bitterly. "Maybe, but I'm 17 years-old. I shouldn't be afraid of thunderstorms anymore."

"I don't think it's that," she took a few more hesitant steps. "I don't think… I…"

His hung head slightly aimed her way, showing her that he was raptly listening to anything that came out of her mouth. She licked her lips and gulped, hoping that her reasoning resonated with him enough to make him see the real issue at hand.

"You're not afraid of thunderstorms, Tony," she began and she finally sat next to him. "You're afraid of what they represent. What they remind you of."


	6. Chapter 5

**Guest Review Responses**

**None :'( There's no more guest love for me :(**

**A/N: **Wow! This update only took a week! Hopefully, the next one will be as swift. I need to speed it up not just for your sake, my Faithful Readers, but for the sake of the story as well because I WAS ACCEPTED TO SCHOOL! Yes, Miss Starfire, as old as she is, is going back to school to get a degree similar to the one Pepper has in this story: Cybersecurity and digital forensics. I'm so psyched about it, but I know it's gonna take time away that I already don't have. Here's hoping I can finish the story before the Fall semester starts!

Warning: cardiac arrests and emotional rollercoaster await you all.

BTW, I have nothing against Bobby Drake. I actually have had a crush on the guy since I was a teen. I just… needed to make him… different… for drama and plot purposes… don't hate me for it! He'll get better!

* * *

**Chapter 5**

_Aldrich was enjoying his lunch break, away from the mind-numbing chats his peers engaged in back at the lab. He truly appreciated the down time and the freedom to walk around Stark International as he pleased without having to watch his back; a luxury he had been enjoying for years now. The only person that been aware of his dark, past actions was long gone – dead, thanks to his divine intervention – and it suited him just as well, especially now that he had been closely following the distinctive life of Tony Stark._

**Specimen 1**_, Aldrich thought with a smile, his attention captured by the electronic tablet in his hands while he reviewed his latest findings on the case. How much he had learned of him in the last three months he had been observing him, he could not truly fathom yet: the repercussions of Tony's superhuman abilities had opened doors he had not even known were closed to his research. The young inventor's life was unique enough already, just by being as brilliant and rich as he was. The icing on the cake was not just his superhero persona, but the rarity of his strain of Extremis._

_ The simple fact that Tony could interface with computers from afar, was astonishing in its own right. But to add to that the genius' heightened strength, speed, senses and healing abilities… he was just what Aldrich had wanted to create, all his life, perfectly packaged in a bundle he could not wait to get his hands on. Even the circumstances that originated his version of the virus were odd. How had Tony Stark, someone with no previous acquaintance with the inner workings of the virus, been able to mold the composition to his needs? How in the world had a teenager of all things, no matter how smart, been successful in transferring an unstable virus into his own body, on his first try?_

_ And, more importantly: why, oh, why was he, Aldrich Killian, the mastermind behind the glory that was Extremis, unable to replicate what Tony had done?_

**Beginner's luck**_, Aldrich mused, but he knew that there was more than that – much more to it than he had been able to find out for now._

_ Killian had mistakenly believed that when Tony Stark had officially moved Stark Solutions to Stark International's premises over the summer, that it would become much easier for Maya to entice him to visit their home, and as such, that he would be able to observe the specimen closer than he could at work. Sadly, his stepdaughter – although unaware of her stepfather's true intentions – was having a tough time keeping the full attention of the inventor, and Aldrich had a suspicion that it was due to Tony's friend and roommate: that redheaded girl that had most of the SI board's panties in a wad. He had never actually met her in person, but from conversations he had overheard about her, and from the interactions he had documented between the girl and the Extremis specimen, he could see how someone passive like Maya was having a difficult time overshadowing a rather active youngster such as the ginger that co-owned Stark Solutions. _

_In the limited amount of time that Stark Solutions had been hosted at SI, being granted a meeting with Tony Stark or even seeing him in the halls was something akin to being handed the jackpot numbers to the Tri-State Powerball. The redhead, Pepper Potts: AKA Firecracker – the nickname some irate Stark International board members who did not like her, had given her – was very mindful of who got to interact with her business partner. Rumors that the two owners of Stark Solutions were sharing more than just business profits at the end of the day were prominent along the grapevine, but Aldrich had never paid any mind to them until he realized that whatever was going on between Potts and Stark was interfering with his ability to further research the specimen at his leisure._

_And then, to make matters worse, once Stark Solutions had purchased Hammer Multinational, Tony Stark was hardly ever seen at SI. Even during board meetings, it was the redhead who came to SI in his stead. It was her who spoke for him, who always showed her face on his behalf, and who still made it difficult for him to get near the inventor. It drove the board members crazy. It drove __**him**__ crazy! Even S.H.I.E.L.D. was struggling to get ahold of the genius. It was her and her resilient connection with the blue-eyed boy that made it almost impossible for Maya to do what Aldrich had been supporting her in doing: get closer to the young man he was eager to study._

**That wretched redhead!**_ Aldrich held back a groan. _**I should just kill her too!**

_Killian's eyes rose from his tablet when he heard the all-too-familiar sound of the arrival of said obstacle, coming from the front main entrance of the building. To be honest, he was surprised that she was even here, seeing as it was not a regular board meeting day, but yet here she was: strutting inside the main lobby, walking normally despite her armor retracting into her girlish-looking silver and purple backpack that Tony Stark had no doubt made for her. He had seen the spectacle too many times, and he always had to hold back a roll of his eyes when other employees' mouth still hung at seeing her come in like that. It was not even that impressive for him, seeing as the woman probably did not even know how to take full advantage of the weapon she had been handed by the young Stark. She probably only used it to fly, and sometimes pretend she fought crime. Nonetheless, Aldrich was overly confident than in a real life and death situation, the girl would not know how to properly defend herself inside all of that cutting-edge tech._

**Why can't she just drive a car to work? She probably can't even do that!**

_Aldrich returned his attention to the tablet and continued running simulations on it. That redheaded woman held nothing of significance to him. The maniac ruler of Latveria was right on the money with his future plans of ridding the world of her. Too bad Killian was only contracted to work on the Extremis analysis for the madman– he could think of many ways to make Pepper Potts struggle for her last breath._

_It had worked on Maria Stark, had it not?_

_It would surely also work on her._

xxxXXXxxx

"Can I at least get a slingshot?" Pepper whined as she slowly walked inside the newly-built virtual reality training room in Muir Island's Mutant Research Facility and the metal doors closed behind her, leaving her in complete darkness while she waited for the simulation to start. The structure was wide and long and it spanned over several floors; its tall ceilings permitted the rendering of very life-like weather patterns and geographic conditions the group of heroes was sure to face on their trek to Latveria.

With the help of several S.H.I.E.L.D. engineers, programmers, Howard, Tony and Pepper, and using as a basis blueprints from a similar feature in the School for Gifted Youngsters, the resistance army now had a way to practice and enhance their abilities in training for their counterattack against Doom. It had taken them two weeks of non-stop work and several long nights of testing, but here it was: a quick, relatively safe and measurable means to prepare for the unexpected.

_"No slingshots. This is a test of basic skills, Mrs. Stark,"_ Maria Hill's voice in the PA system stated. _"Just as with everyone else, we need a base status of your abilities without the use of any weapons to compare it to how you behave in the suit."_

"But we already have loads of data on that!" Pepper argued, hugging herself when the bitter cold room grew even colder. "I've told you we have plenty of similar analysis that we made ourselves! And the name's: Pepper, dammit! Only Fury _has_ to call me Mrs. Stark!"

The snickering at the ginger's antics was not absent from the other individuals watching the scene from the computer screens and/or through the glass walls of the control room located at the very top of the structure. Almost everyone present already knew about Pepper's innate peculiar mannerisms, most especially when she was made to do things she did not want to do in the first place. But to the newcomers, particularly to all but one of the X-Men – even if they had been casually interacting with her for two weeks now – it was both entertaining and shocking that the Rescue alter ego behaved in such a childlike fashion in the face of upcoming simulated danger.

"_Those analyses were done before Extremis awoke in you, Pepper,"_ Maria coolly explained to the redhead despite Nick Fury's previously clearly stated instructions to his agents of keeping confidential the details, goals and expectations of this and all future trainings. Nick was cognizant that Maria had started to think for herself and was starting to make her own calls – traits that were surely detrimental to his plans since she had as much authority as he did – and it appeared as if he and his lieutenant needed to have another extended conversation about keeping their personal beliefs from doing their fucking job.

It was already maddening enough to Fury to have recently found out that Maria Hill had been the one who had secretly helped Pepper Potts realize the swindle Tony Stark had been a victim of under S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick still could not make peace with the fact that Hill had sent Pepper Potts the evidence ascertaining that Tony had not known what he had agreed to when he had signed the documents with S.H.I.E.L.D. on the WSC's behalf when their son had "died." If Maria had never sent that message to Pepper in the mail, Pepper would have never suspected S.H.I.E.L.D. of wrongdoing, thus Tony and her would had never changed their will to protect their assets in the event of their deaths, and the Stark Solutions weapons S.H.I.E.L.D. had needed to fight Doom would have been available for their taking after having convinced the world that they had died in the plane explosion.

Oh, it would have been _so_ much simpler for everyone if Tony and Pepper did not have to get involved.

Alas, here they were.

"_And also before Tony had to stop using his own Extremis abilities in battle," _Maria continued her reasoning._ "We need a recent, more accurate depiction of everyone's abilities as of today."_

"Ugh, you and your logic," Pepper mumbled as she began rubbing her folded arms with her hands. "Can you at least turn on the lights in here? And don't tell me that you can't because I _know_ you can. I helped build the fucking thing, remember? And why the hell is it so _cold_?!"

xxxXXXxxx

"Oh-ho, boy, she's pissed," Tony said with a small smirk, arms crossed over his chest, watching Maria Hill's movement to his left from the corner of his eye. "I'd turn on those lights if I were you."

"The darkness is part of the training stage we chose for her," Natasha, who was standing to Tony's right and was bent over the large system dashboard, informed everyone as she finished typing a sequence of obstacles into the simulation input screen. "It started the moment the doors closed."

"Pepper hates the dark, probably more than the cold," Tony stated and dropped his arms to his sides, already regretting their agreement to submitting themselves to these virtual training sessions. "She hates it _a lot_."

"Since when?" Rhodey asked from his sitting position in the back of the room, having earlier in the day taken over an entire screen for his viewing pleasure while he waited for his turn in the Virtual Training Room, or the VTR.

"Since Whitney kidna–" Tony began his response, but when he recalled that the blonde was also in the room and that a reluctant pact had been made to call a truce between them while they worked together against Doom, he cleared his throat and held back his tongue. "Since the South Pole incident."

"Oh," was all that Rhodey replied as he glared at Agent Stane, standing on the opposite side of the room from where he sat. "I had no idea."

"She never shows it," Happy pointed out, squinting, trying without success to find the ginger in the dark room below them. "I found out by accident when I was coming back from being on patrol in the middle of the night and she almost hit me in the face with a bat. I scared the crap out of her without meaning to."

"She's fine with it if it doesn't last long, for the most part," Tony detailed. "And as long as she's not alone in it. Or if she knows where she is and who's around."

"There'll be loads of darkness, coldness and uncertainty where we're going," Maya reminded them, speaking almost from first-hand experience. "Electric power is scarce around the world right now. Doom's been making sure very little communication happens between nations."

"Best way to keep everyone from rallying against him," Fury shrugged. "Just keep everyone in the dark, literally."

"I still think he's just hogging up all the electricity to finally turn on his Matrix rip-off thingamajig," Arthur Parks began. "It's getting harder and harder to find available travel routes without risking being found through the power lines. They're giving off some rare waves that I'm not 100% sure are electrical. They make me feel sick when I pass through them!"

"T'Challa and Banner are checking on that in Wakanda," Gene popped in the conversation. "We should be hearing about it from them soon."

"Let's hope it's sooner than soon," Hawkeye scoffed. "We only have a couple more weeks before we need to start heading out of here."

_"What the hell, people?"_ Pepper's loud and shrieking voice coming from the intercom made everyone physically flinch. _"Is your test for me seeing how long I can go before dying of boredom? Because I'm pretty dang close to – AAH!"_

xxxXXXxxx

The first hit came from behind her, sweeping her off her feet in a quick move. She barely had time to cushion her fall with her arms in front of her face and roll to her side before a swift strike of light made a hole where she had just been laying. She rushed to her feet, ran away from the random specks of light that were now following her in the pitch darkness, and then partly covered her communicator in her right ear with her hand to speak to the perpetrators of the surprise attack.

"A little heads up would've been nice," she grumbled into the wireless earpiece. "And why are the lights still off? OH, _SHIT_!"

This time, and even though she saw a tiny amount of light before it hit her, the next attack came from the front, hitting her straight in the stomach with such intensity that she fell flat on her back. The air was knocked out of her and her head was spinning, but she had enough sense in her to struggle back onto her feet once more. She ran as she fast as she could, taking in deep, painful breaths, her left palm rubbing her sore midsection, and stopping only when she felt she had hit a wall.

She rested her weight against it, gasped in even larger amounts of air, and then screamed into the communicator one more time. "HEY! ARE YOU LISTENING? TURN THE LIGHTS ON!"

xxxXXXxxx

"Turn the fucking lights on," Tony growled, his narrowed eyes glaring at Black Widow. "She can't show you what she can do if she can't see what she's doing."

"Intel tells me she doesn't need her eyes to fight," Fury looked over his shoulder to steal a quick glance towards Gene. "She probably just forgot that herself."

Gene swallowed hard, ran towards the glass wall to look down, and prayed that Pepper quickly remembered all those sessions they had both had, a while ago.

xxxXXXxxx

"AAAHH!"

She barely avoided being hit in the face, and if she did not know any better, she would have strongly believed these simulations were actually real. Virtual reality devices of this caliber were not available on the market yet, and for a good reason: they were dangerous in the wrong hands. The VR Designer was the closest she had come to interacting with virtual reality simulators on a long-term basis, and even then, when she had used the damned thing only for projecting Tony's many inventions, she had been wholeheartedly uncomfortable with sticking her hands into it.

"TURN. THE LIGHTS. ON!"

xxxXXXxxx

"That's enough," Scott deadpanned, surprising everyone else in the room. "You weren't this hard on the rest of us when you tested us. Either turn the lights on or stop the simulation right now."

"You're not in charge here, Cyclops," Fury said nonchalantly. "I'm still the last word on this island."

"We get that, but do you_ really_ have to be so hard on Red, though?" Iceman asked, flinching every time Pepper's helpless-sounding yelps came through the speakers. "From all of us, she's the one with the least amount of training. She's not even a mutant!"

"I'd say that, technically, she could be considered one," Widow replied. "And it only_ seems_ as if she's been treated unfairly – differently. But she's not."

"She is!" Tony threw his arms in the air before he pointed towards one of the screens that showed Pepper's escalating vital signs. "She doesn't have any powers! She hasn't been fighting as long as the rest of us have!"

"But _you_ still brought her into this," Fury pointed out. "The first time she fought was when the Makluan invaded. You had no problem with that then, did you, Stark?"

"Of course I did! But I couldn't do anything about it. Besides, she wasn't alone and I didn't plan for the Makluan to invade when I had just given her the suit!" Tony defended himself. "And she _was_ IN the suit! She was protected by it! And me! Here… here she's got nothing!"

"Come on, Pepper," Gene said, choosing to ignore the pointless argument taking place behind him, his palms pressed against the glass wall. "Come on!"

"The testing continues as it was planned for Mrs. Stark," Fury said with finality. "Whether anyone here likes it or not."

xxxXXXxxx

"_Hello?!_ Did anyone up there forget I'm supposed to be part of the mission, too? I can't do my part if you KILL me before we go to Doom's castle! Anybody? GAH!"

As she evaded one more gruesome attack from whatever type of assailants were now surrounding her, she quickly and agonizingly realized that she was going to be shown no mercy by anyone either up there in the command center or down here with her. In the back of her mind, she somewhat understood why her testing and training had to be as demanding as it had been for everyone else that had gone before her: they were all going to be expected to perform at the same level once in battle. That much, she agreed with.

However, a critical fault in that logic was that S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to be currently disregarding the fact that they so far had only tested the mutants in the group – expecting a similar performance from her as they had received from the highly-trained X-Men was just plain ignorant. Her being the first one of the _normal_ individuals in the crew to test, it was possible that perhaps they had overlooked the fact that she could not shoot lasers from her eyes, use her mind to move objects, make a hole in a steel wall with one punch, create ice from the compounds in the air, teleport in a cloud of smoke, charge objects with kinetic energy or perform air acrobatics with ease.

She was nothing more than a lowly human compared to these heroes, especially without her suit. Even Tony, Rhodey and Happy would undoubtedly do better than her in these tests! Pepper had more martial arts training than Happy and Tony _combined_, but both men were… well, men! They were naturally more physically suited to fighting than she was! And, on top of this annoying truth, Tony had his quick brain to MacGyver himself out of a tricky situation, while Happy had years upon years of sports and weight training! Whitney was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, trained by Hawkeye and Black Widow, at that. Maya was not going to be in the field of battle, so she did not really count. And Gene… he was the fucking Mandarin, for crying out loud!

What did _she_ have to offer for this task, then? If it came down to her lonely self being the only thing keeping her son alive, what chance did she even have? If she was to be the one person standing between James Stark and Doctor Doom, her son was in for a world of hurt!

And that situation could very damn well end up being the case, seeing as it was going to be only her and Jimmy against Doom's power core room of trickery. If her suit failed her, if Jimmy was unable to uncover all of the traps in the room, she would have nothing left to protect him, herself or anyone else.

"What the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?" Pepper yelled in blind anger, for the nth barely time avoiding another hit that could have ended the simulation in her virtual death. "I give up, ALRIGHT? Turn it off! TURN IT OFF! NOW! I can't… I… can't…"

xxxXXXxxx

"Turn it _off_!" Tony demanded and hit his fists on the dashboard. "Turn it off or I'll shut down your entire system, right now!"

"Settle down, Stark!" Fury replied. "You agreed to this, remember? You can't take it back now."

"Watch me!" Tony said with determination as he attempted to walk towards the closest keyboard to fold the entire operation, but he was shocked to find that he could no longer move. "What the…"

His eyes landed on Jean Grey's almost immediately, but she quickly shook her head, showing with it that she was not the one preventing him from helping his wife. The inventor's blue orbs then eyed Professor Xavier, but he too shook his head at him to confirm his innocence in the matter. Tony wracked his mind trying to determine who else had the ability to hamper his corporeal movements, who _else _could keep him from getting Pepper out of the training chambers. The voice of the culprit, though, was quicker in giving itself out than the genius was able to figure out who it was before then.

"Let her try, Stark," Gene said, his rings and his eyes glowing brightly, staring directly at Pepper even in the dark. "She needs this. She needs to figure it out on her own."

"Seriously, Gene?" Tony said in utter disbelief over the redhead's screams that were making him go insane in anger. "_You_'re supporting Nick on this? How can _you_ do this to her? TO _HER_!"

"Just give her a moment. She'll do it."

"Do what, exactly? GENE!" Tony snarled. "_GENE!_ This is Pepper we're talking about! _Pepper_! How can you just stand there when she's–"

"_TURN IT OFF!" _Pepper's desperate voice over the communication systems only succeeded in enraging Tony even more and planting doubt into Gene's heart._ "Didn't you hear me? Anyone there? I give up! I. GIVE. UP!"_

"Fury, make it stop!" Scott yelled when the redhead's heart monitor warned of it approaching a maximum unsafe beat rate.

"No," the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. replied. "We proceed as planned."

"This is just plain torture," Scott's fingers rested on the side of his visor. "Shut it down or I will!"

"Wait!" Gene said and aimed his palm towards the field leader of the X-Men. "Just, give her a moment!"

"Dammit, Gene!" Tony spat towards a motionless Mandarin. "Stop this! You can stop this! Why aren't you doing anything?!"

"_PLEASE!" _Gene could see Pepper curling into a ball on the floor, her body receiving some of the brunt of several of the attacks that the yet unknown virtual creatures around her were randomly sending her way._ "TURN IT OFF! GET ME OUT OF HERE! PLEASE!"_

"GENE!"

Tony's subtle move of his hands caught Gene's attention. The inventor was supposed to be stuck standing there, petrified all over save from the neck up. However, Tony was now somehow becoming able to shake his fingers and wiggle his hands despite having Makluan energy surrounding his form. It was clear that Tony's ire was out of control, and if Pepper kept screaming for help like she was, Gene had no doubt that Tony would break out of his quantum-dot energy prison.

"Gene, _why_ are you doing this?" Tony insisted, his own fear with the situation pouring out of his voice. "_Listen_ to her! Why are you letting them do this to her? TO PEPPER! I thought… I though… I thought you _loved_ her too, you son of a bitch!"

As soon as the words left him, a rather small part of Tony wanted to take them back; make it so that he had never said anything at all. Not because he thought his words were lies – they actually could not be closer to the truth – but because it had been an unspoken covenant that Gene's feelings for Pepper were only for the three of them to know and for no one else to find out. On the other hand, he had made this silent promise before Gene had allowed for Pepper to be injured like this, by Nick Fury, nonetheless. He had once decided to let the issue go as long as Gene did not decide to pursue his woman again.

Tony had never even considered what he would do about his promise to himself regarding Gene if said man ever brought harm to his redhead because, to be honest, he never thought he would live to see the day it would take place.

After a short moment of silence that felt like decades (during which all eyes in the room fell on the Mandarin as everyone was shocked at hearing that the seemingly cold-hearted leader of the Tong held romantic feelings for the ginger), Gene finally looked back over his shoulder at Tony, narrowed his eyes again and spoke.

"The reason _why_ I'm doing this," he replied, "is because I _trust_ that she can do this – more than _you_ do."

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper closed her eyes and whimpered. Heavy, hot tears of despair poured out of her and had she been able to ball herself tightly enough until she turned into a tiny bug, she would have gladly done so right now. She could not understand why no one was helping her. She was starting to think that no one could hear her, and that was highly possible during these training sessions. But could they not see her? Could they not notice that she was not fighting back, at all?

"TONYYY!"

She uttered his name when she felt an aggressor finally pinpoint her exact location on the floor and kicked her with all its might on her side, sending her flying towards the back wall before she slid down back onto the floor like a rag doll. She could barely breathe. Her vision was blurrier than it should have been even in the dark. Her entire body was shaking, and if she was not just imagining sensations that were not really there, she was sure as hell that there was a trail of blood coming down the back of her neck, into her shirt. Was the simulation not supposed to stop when the user was injured? If she let herself be 'killed' by the simulation – which she had been trying to do for a few minutes – was that not supposed to make everything go back to normal?

Why was it not working? Why was the safeguard that she and Tony had made sure they coded into the system not executing as it was supposed to? Why was Tony_ allowing_ this to happen to her?

_How am I supposed to do this? With just my hands? How?! _

She got on all fours and used the wall behind her to slowly help herself stand up, her hands casing her face when she felt a bout of nausea invade her.

_How am I supposed to fight what I can't see?! _

The redhead stopped in her tracks, gasped in realization and then pulled her hands from her face. The answer to her current predicament finally came to her. It was so simple, so obvious, that she felt like an idiot for not thinking about it until now. Maria Hill had even been so kind as to give her a clue at the start of the session and she just now saw it for what it was: the actual reason why they were doing this exercise at all.

Her Extremis.

What she could now do with it.

What Gene had inadvertently trained her to do.

_I don't need to see_, she thought with confidence while she gently dragged herself to what she hoped was a far corner of the large room so that she could concentrate. _I just need to feel. Just… __**feel**__… I just need to…_

She closed her eyes.

She exhaled deeply.

And Extremis knew exactly what it needed to do.

_Survive._

xxxXXXxxx

"Here it comes," Maya said when she noticed that Pepper's vitals were suddenly stabilizing, all previous warning alarms disappearing in a rush. "We've collected normal levels base data and now Extremis levels base data. Her heart rate is slowing down to below the average range."

"Is it stopping?" Rhodey was standing up now, afraid of what the answer could be as he walked closer to the health monitoring screens.

"No," Maria Hill shook her head. "We expected it to do this at this point."

"Brain activity is spiking," Black Widow uttered, prompting Tony to stare at the same display Natasha was reviewing. "She's coming out of the corner now. Brain waves are off the charts!"

_Off the charts_, Tony remembered where and when he had picked up that same phrase being stated about Pepper. He had heard her doctors say that about her over and over again, when she had been at the hospital after finding her in the submarine. He actually hated hearing that phrase, and what it reminded him of; a time when he had almost lost the girl he loved.

"Activate night vision, Hill," Fury ordered and she carried on with his mandate. Seconds later, all cameras and displays in the command center showed twenty blue dots, signaling the current positions of the virtual attackers, while a single red dot signaled the present whereabouts of Pepper Potts. She was slowly rounding the corners with the sureness and finesse one would assume could be had if the lights were on, but even now, it was dark enough to not see one's hand in front of their face.

The show that Nick Fury had been waiting for was about to start.

xxxXXXxxx

Her arms rested at her sides, her shoulders relaxed. Her steps were slow and calculated. Her eyes were no longer hazel, but completely black as her pupils had taken complete real estate of her orbs. She blinked slowly, almost lazily so, and once she chose her first target, she all but threw herself at it.

xxxXXXxxx

"What. The. Fuck?"

Happy's verbal sentiment echoed everyone's thoughts as they observed the scene unfolding below them with incredulous eyes. Every person present in the room alternated between staring at the night-vision enhanced displays, the random specks of light that sometimes illuminated small areas in the actual VTR – very much so as a lightning show illuminated a dark, stormy night – and Pepper's vital signs screen that showed how her brain and body activity were complete opposites at the moment. Her heart and breathing were slowing down, but her brain was firing up, illuminating the screens as if was the middle of Christmas Eve.

"How is she doing this?" Gambit asked, honestly surprised that the little redhead had this much ability in her. "She's not even making a sound!"

"The Makluan-based creatures we're using for her training cannot see her either. They've been finding her location based on her voice."

"Because it's Pepper," Rhodey said. "She never shuts up."

"Exactly," Maya chirped in. "We can't make Pepper stay quiet, but we _can _make her Extremis survival skills come out."

"She's not even breaking a sweat there," Tony uttered when he felt his limbs being released from Gene's incantation, his anger slowly declining as he joined the others in seeing his wife dispose of each Makluan lizard, one by one. "How… how is she doing this?"

"She thought she was gonna die," Whitney said as if it was obvious to anyone with eyes. "Extremis won't allow that. Pepper…" the blonde hesitated, not wanting to be the one to relay to Tony something she knew he was yet to known about his wife's abilities, but that it was better that he made his peace with it sooner rather than later. "Pepper's probably gonna outlive all of us. And her kids and grandkids, too, for all we know. Even James. The more exposed she is to anything that can kill her, the more her body learns about how to keep itself alive."

"Because of Extremis?" Rhodey asked, the idea making sense to him to some extent. "Because Pepper has Extremis?"

"Pepper IS Extremis," Maya said. "She didn't acquire it later in life like Agent Mallen, Aldrich or even Tony did. She doesn't have an altered, combined version of it like James does. There's no limitation to its lifecycle. James is enhanced, but he too will die, eventually, of natural causes at the least, because his version of Extremis is not an untamed one. It's precise: it knows what it can do and what it can't, and doesn't try to extend itself beyond that. As part of his body, Extremis will eventually stop working in him. But, in Pepper…" Maya shook her head and let her words trail, knowing she did not have to elaborate on her train of thought.

"Is that why Killian has lived for so long?" Arthur Parks asked. "Is that why he's over a hundred years of age?"

"Yes," Hill replied. "He's been pumping himself with all types of Extremis to make that happen. Now that he's used James Stark's unique strain to cure his disease, he could be practically immortal, for all we know. And Pepper, as much as she despises it to be the truth, she's his biological daughter."

xxxXXXxxx

She only had ten more to go and it would be over. Such pitiful creatures these lizards were. The fact that she had been stressed about taking them on just minutes ago was suddenly very silly to her. They were so weak, strategically speaking; so easy to take down. She did not have super strength like Tony or James; the sudden bursts of increased strength she had so far exhibited in the past were more akin to adrenaline surges, and were merely at the very far end of the spectrum of natural human strength. But with the superhuman gifts she _did_ have, she did not need to have enhanced strength to destroy these creatures. All she had to do was use their own strength against them, and those spears of lightning they were carrying with them made the job that much easier to accomplish. The darkness was her ally; it was turning out to be, because the alien scum she was facing against could only find her by using echolocation.

_Blind as bats_, Pepper thought as she once again conned a Makluan lizard to spear a friend, a trick that had come in handy in dealing with these senseless creatures.

_Slow as snails, _she grabbed onto the two spears that were now available for her to use and twirled them in her hands.

_Dumb as rocks, _she stuck the two spears into the chest and neck of her twelfth attacker, rendering him death in seconds.

One by one, the Makluan invaders expired, either by her hand or as a result of her quick reflexes and keen thinking to deceiving them into doing the deed for her. The cold no longer bothered her: her body was constantly matching the environment's temperature to keep her from feeling its effects. The dark no longer scared her: the auras she could see showed her everything she needed to know about who was around her and how close they were. Her dire situation no longer made her feel helpless; she was actually more cunning that she thought she could be.

When the last Makluan fell, it was all due to her. She did not rely on anything else to kill it for her. She did not even use a spear or took advantage of the element of surprise or the darkened room. She did not even bother to conceal her location, instead greeting said animal with an eerie-sounding _Hi_ that sent shivers down everyone's spine.

"Bye," Pepper uttered before she broke the neck of the Makluan between her legs like a twig.

Along with the thud of the lizard hitting the ground, the crash of a projectile breaking a portion of the glass wall of the command center, exactly where Nick Fury stood behind it, was the one thing that everyone heard before the sequence ended and the lights turned on.

xxxXXXxxx

Two inches.

Two short inches.

That was how close the sharp tip of the hardlight holographic spear had come to virtually implanting itself into Nick Fury's skull.

And even now, when all eyes had shifted from gazing at the source of the commotion in the command center to staring down towards the VTR at a rather calm-looking redhead standing in the middle of the room, the clear evidence of what had just transpired was almost impossible to accept as true.

Her arm slowly retracted from its final stretched out position after the launching of the weapon towards her intended target. She was conscious of the fact that the hologram of a weapon was programmed so that it could not really harm him or anyone near, but her intention had not been to physically hurt him; she had just wanted to visually warn him.

"_Pull that again without telling me first,"_ she told Nick over the comm system, her eyes directly staring at his. _"I dare you."_

Tony gave Fury a swift _I-told-you-so_ look before he ran out the door and pressed the down button of the only elevator in the level. Before the doors had a chance to close, Gene joined him in the cart, an uncomfortable silence falling upon them as they rode down to the lowest floor of the VTR. Now that Pepper was safe – not that she had been in any real danger, actually – Tony's side that chastised him for revealing to the world the feelings the Mandarin had for the spunky girl, grew in size. On his end, Gene also felt a pang of regret for taking part in the operation that forced Pepper to harshly learn what she could do. It was inevitable, he knew that much, as abilities like hers were not typical. There was no manual to be followed and no straightforward procedure she could rely upon to master her skill. It was just like him with the Makluan rings: the true power of them was yet to be discovered, and only trials and failures would eventually teach him everything he needed to know about said rings.

The main difference in this situation, Gene now came to see, was that it was easier to put one through unforgiving conditions than it was to watch those you loved go through the same, regardless of the positive and progressing outcomes.

The doors of the elevator did not open quickly enough for Tony. He squeezed himself through a small gap between the opening doors only to be hastily greeted by a pair of bright, hazel eyes and two warm arms surrounding him from the front.

"Did you see that, Tony?" she was beaming. "Did you see what I did?!"

"Yeah, I did," he replied to her after he gulped. His eyes covertly stared at her up and down and his hands surreptitiously checked for signs of wounds even though his mind knew without a doubt that she could not really be injured in the VTR. "You were great, Pep."

"Great?" she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I _KICKED_ ASS!"

He offered her a small smile before she leapt onto him and pressed her face against his chest.

"Thank you for trusting me, Tony," her words stung him. "Thank you for not letting me take the easy way out! I knew you trusted me! I just knew you did!"

He swallowed hard again, returned the embrace, but said nothing more. He rested his chin on top of her head before his face then slid slightly to his left to glance with a repentant face at an incoming Gene. His _frenemy_ was once again correct about how his persona operated: Gene _did_ trust Pepper with being able to protect herself more than Tony did. Just a couple of weeks ago, she had pleaded with him to trust her to do her best in carrying out her important single task in their mission, and he had said that he had no doubt that she could do what she was expected to do. Nevertheless, here he was, pretending to believe in her abilities just seconds after he had almost blown the whole operation because she had cried – because she had hesitated for an instant and had doubted herself.

"Gene!"

Pepper pulled away from Tony and ran towards her mentor, her hands clasped against her chest and her smile wider than he had ever before been the recipient of. "Did you see it, too? Did you see how much ass I kicked? Oh, my gosh! It was so awesome! It _was_ awesome, wasn't it? _Wasn't it_?"

"It was alright," Gene said with a shrug, a small smirk and that tone of jest he hardly ever used on anyone. It was the type of response that went against everything anyone knew about him. It was the attitude that made him seem more human than he allowed himself to be. He tried to avoid behaving like this, but it was difficult to hide it from her. "I guess I could even say that you did OK."

"Oh, come on!" Pepper whined, placed her hands on his upper arms and used them to propel herself closer to his face. "You're totally pulling my leg right now, aren't you?_ Aren't_ you? Why don't you believe in me, Gene? You trained me! Well, a lot of people did, but you showed me the aura thingy! Have more faith in your student, Gene! Even Tony trusts me, see?"

Gene eyed the inventor with neutral eyes, but Tony knew what was crossing the Mandarin's mind at the moment.

"Well, tell him, Tony!" Pepper insisted. "Tell him you trust me! Tell him he needs to trust me more!"

Tony inwardly panicked, torn between telling the truth, breaking Pepper's heart and protecting Gene's image. In the end, he was spared the trouble of deciding what to do or say when Rhodey and Happy showed up, both praising Pepper for a job well done.

xxxXXXxxx

Astonishingly enough, the current silence between Rhodey and Gene was fairly amicable. After a couple of hours of sparring, settling some of their differences by taking turns one-upping each other in the punching and kicking process, and then sitting down on the floor of one of the gyms of the facility, the duo was ready to make good on their agreement to let bygones be bygones… at least for now.

It was rather ironic that, years later, Rhodey found in Gene someone he could train with without having to worry about seriously hurting him, annoying him with this taunting and bluffing, holding back, or wondering if he was letting him have an advantage the military man did not wish to have. Happy was fun to have around for company while he worked out, but the jock was not very well trained in hand-to-hand combat – at least not to the level that Rhodey had been intensively taught for the past four years.

Then there was Tony, who could hold up to Rhodey's abilities, but on whom was difficult to let it all out. Even good-naturedly, neither Tony nor Rhodey could find it in their hearts to not pull back their punches; years of friendship preventing them from risking giving the other a black eye, a broken bone or worse. Even if they were extremely mad at each other, the two young men had ties that bound them closer than any argument could ever amount to drift them apart.

Begrudgingly, Rhodey silently accepted that even Madame Masque was better suited to fight him if Gene was not around.

With Gene, however, things were different. Neither of them was sure if a genuine friendship could ever grow between them after the way the cards of life had been dealt in the past, but they at least knew there was no requirement to pussyfoot around each other. There was a mutual expectation of brutal honesty, in fact, even if that honesty meant telling each other how much they hated each other's guts.

There was not much to do in the underground building while they waited to leave for Latveria, either way, so it was not really surprising to either of them that individuals that would otherwise not even glance at each other during a normal situation would find it necessary to overlook their personal grudges for the sake of having a way to let out anger and frustrations by _hanging out_. Besides, Rhodey knew that he could do much worse than training with Gene Khan. Much, _much _worse.

"Rhodes! _Khan_!"

Happy Hogan's cheerful voice approaching them and his verbal and hand salute made Rhodey grin and Gene groan. The tall man sat on the floor, near the workout mats, effectively finding a comfortable spot that allowed him to eye both Rhodey and Gene at the same time. James and Gene were sitting almost shoulder-to-shoulder, both facing the front entrance of the weight lifting room, their backs against the rear wall.

"Happy," Gene scowled, "it's been years since high school. Why do you continue to call me that?"

"Like, what?" Happy feigned ignorance. "Oh, you mean: KHAAAN?"

"Yeah, that," Gene stated, two fingers massaging his forehead. "Do you even_ know_ where that's from?"

"Khan?" Happy asked and tapped his chin with his right index finger.

"Yes."

"Well, duh," Happy rolled his eyes. "It's from _Gene_ KHAN!"

"Ugh, forget it!" Gene rolled his eyes and face-palmed himself.

Even Rhodey, who was now sipping from his water bottle to keep his chuckles from coming out, had to admit that the entire conversation was more than just a tad amusing to the ear and the eye. Happy would always be Happy. Gene would always be Gene. And Happy and Gene in the same room would always be entertaining, no matter what.

"Anyway," Happy leaned forward a tad so that he was slightly closer to the Mandarin's face for a moment, gave him a probing look, and then pulled back to cross his arms over his chest. "What exactly _are_ your intentions with Pepper?"

A wall of water in his face that came out of Rhodey's mouth was the first response that the jock received to his inappropriate inquiry.

"Happy," Rhodey began while using the edge of his right hand to wipe his chin. "That's not really—"

"Any of my business?" Happy challenged. "Uhm, yes, it is. This totally concerns me. Both Pepper and Tony are my friends."

"And I'm not," Gene deadpanned.

Happy's head recoiled in pained astonishment. "No, you _are_. That's _why_ I want to know what the hell is going on here."

Happy never ceased to flabbergast them with his odd view of the world – with his open willingness to let everyone know what he thought and how he felt. Nothing was a secret when it came to Happy; the unlikely and unforeseen bond between the old gang and the brawny man continuously found a way to warm everyone's heart.

Even Gene had to remind himself to keep a straight face at the man's admission of his complete acceptance of the Great Mandarin into the team.

"Happy," Rhodey shook his head. "I don't think that it's even right to bring it up."

"Why not?" Happy argued. "Tony said it in front of everyone."

"Tony wasn't thinking straight," Rhodey replied in an attempt to prevent the awkward conversation from taking place. He was almost sure that Tony had been too honest with his accusation, but Rhodey also knew that it was neither of their call to demand answers from Gene in the matter. "Maybe he didn't mean it to sound the way it did. Maybe we misunderstood."

"I didn't misunderstand shit!" Happy growled. "I know what I heard," he pointed a single finger towards Gene. "And Tony said that Khan has feelings for Pepper."

"Don't _you_ have feelings for Pepper?" Rhodey countered and Happy gave him an _of course_ look.

"That's why I'm asking! She's my friend and I love her too. But I think that the way you and I love her, is not the same that Gene does. So," Happy eyed Gene once more. "You gonna fess up or what? Why did Tony say you love Pepper?"

"Happy –" Gene began, but before he was able to present his case, a male voice interrupted his response.

"He clearly has mommy issues," Bobby Drake said with confidence, an uncomfortable-looking Gambit trailing behind him. "That's why he has the hots for a woman he knows he can't have. It's all so very textbook, it's boring."

Gene Khan's narrowed eyes and fisted hands did nothing to make Iceman shut up while he was ahead. The physical signs that Bobby was perfectly hitting a soft spot for the Mandarin were evident for only a fraction of a second, too short of a time span for anyone to really claim with certainty that they had been there, before Gene decided to pretend he was to take the high road in this situation and ignore the man's assessment of him and his life.

"Textbook?" Rhodey glared at the man he had not been able to digest since his arrival to the Mutant Research Center, no matter how much he had tried. "What are you, a psychologist?"

"I could be," Bobby shrugged. "I didn't want to pursue the grad degree or the certification, to be honest."

"_You_ have a degree in psychology?" Rhodey asked, surprised to see that someone who had studied how the human psyche worked seemed to have no understanding of common courtesy, personal boundaries or social protocols.

"Double major: sociology and psychology, with a minor in human deviant behavior studies."

"Are we talking about school now?" Happy felt his head starting to hurt. "'Cuz if we are, I'mma check out, _quick_!"

"Your case… your _deviance_…" he stared at Gene straight in the eye. "It's not really surprising, actually," Bobby continued. "It's sick but expected, from someone as introverted, emotionally withdrawn and full of unresolved parental issues such as you."

"Man, cut it out," Gambit stated, his hand on Iceman's left shoulder in an attempt to keep his teammate from digging his own grave.

Bobby was not anywhere near done, though.

Despite the fact that over two weeks had passed since he had been made a fool of by Gene in front of everyone else, Iceman was yet to forgive and forget. The events of the earlier in the day provided an opening for Bobby that had not been present until now. It was not that he hated the guy – he practically hated no one. It was the fact that he was very proud of his mutant powers and his charm over women, and having them both amounting to nothing more than a source for a good laugh and a humorous taunt exercise for his peers by a simpleton such as Gene, did not sit well with Drake.

"Were you abused a child? You had a stepfather, didn't you? Did he constantly overpower you?"

"Are we still talking about school?" Happy asked with a confused frown. "Because it sounds more like you're insulting Khan."

"Bobby," Gambit said in a warning tone.

"Was your mother a redhead?" Iceman continued. "Was she a hot _piece_ like Potts? Do you feel regret when you masturbate to Red, like your mother would scold you? I wouldn't blame you if you did it daily. Pepper is completely fuckable."

"Dude," Rhodey was the one to speak up first in defense of Gene's personal life and Pepper's honor. "Shut the fuck up!"

"What are you, his boyfriend?" Iceman snapped at Rhodey. "And don't get me started on _your_ sexual repression. Someone needs to get you laid."

"OK, now I know you're being an ass," Happy intervened. "Leave them alone and get the hell out of here."

"I'll leave them alone when they tell me to stop. Last I checked, Khan and Rhodes seemed to know how to talk."

"And you seem to talk too much," Gene coolly replied. In spite of his neutral-looking face and his relaxed posture, to state that Gene was not furious and ready to kill the blabbering man before him was nothing but a needless lie. Rhodey and Happy knew that under that cold exterior, the Mandarin was already plotting rather effective ways to silence the mutant. To their surprise, neither of them had any intention of getting in the way of Gene's wrath. In fact, they would even consider helping in cleaning up the mess afterwards and hiding the body.

"So? What's it gonna be?" Bobby asked. "Gonna make me stop? You know, it's too bad Fury called for a break for using the VTR today after Red owned it there. I was looking forward to seeing what _you_ can do without those rings."

"You can find out tomorrow," Rhodey said with a smirk and a mocking tone.

"Or I can find out right now," Iceman defied.

"Bobby," Gambit tried pulling the man by his left arm but he snatched it away from his grip. "Just let it go. We're here to help each other, not _kill_ each other."

"Haha!" Happy threw his head back in laughter and pointed a thumb towards Drake. "You think _Icedkid_ over here can beat up _KHAN_?"

"Iced_kid_?" Bobby snarled.

"Yeah!" Happy stood up and towered over Bobby. "How old are you? Twelve? 'Cuz that's how you act!"

Bobby eyed Happy up and down, tilted his head to the left and the right while he stared at his features, all the while recalling some of the conversations he had had with George and Lila since being introduced to the family members of the team, and then smiled.

"It must be a shame for your brilliant, talented parents to have a kid that is all muscle and no brain. Were you adopted or did they ultimately decide to forgo the abortion?"

"No powers," Gene stood up. "No rings and no mutant abilities."

"What?" Rhodey spat and sat up as well. "You're kidding, right?"

"Now we're talking," Bobby smiled and nodded triumphantly, more than just a little satisfied that his efforts had worked. "Here?"

"Sure," Gene began walking towards the middle of the room, where the most open space was located. "That way, Gambit can be here to drag you to the medical ward down the hall."

Bobby snickered. "Yeah, right."

"Gene," Rhodey ran to where the Chinese man now stood and lowered his voice as he spoke to him. "Why the fuck are you letting this _loser_ get under your skin? He's all bark and no bite!"

"That's why," Gene craned his neck in all directions to crack it, removed all ten rings from his fingers and handed them to Rhodes. "Someone's gotta teach this guy a lesson."

"By _killing_ him?" Rhodey asked in an almost high-pitched tone, quickly pocketing the rings to make sure he did not lose any of them.

"Of course not," Gene replied and Rhodey visibly relaxed until Gene finished his retort. "Not this time, at least."

"How kind of you," Rhodey sarcastically retorted before he shook his head and stepped back to abandon the chosen fighting area.

"It's ON!" Happy lifted his arms above his head in an eager manner before he jogged back to where Rhodey stood.

"How many minutes do you give Iceman?" Rhodey inquired, extending a five-dollar bill towards Happy.

"Minutes?" Happy snorted and took the bill from the agent. "Make it seconds – thirty of them."

"Alright!" Bobby said enthusiastically as he purposefully distorted a martial arts pose he had seen in a movie, eons ago. "Ready, Khan? Gonna use some karate on me? You gonna _hiyaa_?"

Gene's only response was a side-smirk.

Not half a second after Gene acknowledged he was prepared, Bobby charged him. No sooner than two seconds later, Drake found himself hitting the air as he constantly tried – and failed – to hit Gene.

"I should've said forty-five seconds," Happy mumbled and gave the five-dollar bill back to Rhodey. "I didn't think Gene was going to embarrass him first."

Rhodey replied with a light chuckle and grabbed the bill.

"Don't you know what it means to fight?" Bobby teased, trying to hide his frustration at being unable to land the simplest of attacks. "Afraid I'm gonna tear you a new one?"

"You have to touch me first, for that to happen," Gene replied as he once more evaded a kick.

"If you'd stop chickening out of it," Bobby said, "I would!"

"It's called 'defense.'"

"I call it 'being afraid'. It's what weak people use when they have no offense."

"Huh," Rhodey returned to money to Happy. "It might just take only the 30 seconds."

"You guys betting on who wins?" Gambit, who at some point had walked around the room to join Happy and Rhodey, asked the two young men.

"Nope," Happy replied. "Just how long it takes for Gene to kick his ass."

Gambit was taken aback. "How, exactly? He's just dancing in the ring!"

"Khan knows, like, twenty different styles of marital arts…" Happy informed the member of the X-Men, "…_and_ he's part alien. And he once beat up those aliens. With his bare hands."

"Huh?"

"Fuck, man!" Bobby snapped. "No wonder you and Red never got it on! You always pull out!"

"Oh, no," Rhodey said with a flinch.

"He's done," Happy added.

"What?" Before Gambit's question was verbally replied to, Gene responded with his first and only attack.

Taking advantage of Bobby's inbound form, Gene sidestepped and grabbed the man's right arm in his, stretching both as far as they could go. He then placed his left foot against Iceman's midsection and simultaneously pushed and pulled, snapping Bobby's arm out of his socket in a flash. The cry of pain emanating from the mutant was swallowed by the sound of the series of four distinct punches Gene landed on Drake, upper-cutting his stomach, jabbing in his chest, left-hooking his cheek and then palm-heeling his chin and mouth, all in rapid succession. Gene then manipulated Bobby's wobbly position, twirled him in place to secure his left shoulder without having to move himself, and while using his right arm and hand, Gene repositioned the shoulder he had just helped dislocate. The entire move ensued in less than two seconds, culminating with Gene grabbing the man's still sore arm to lunge him over his head and sending him flying off to hit the wall with his back.

"Thirty-one point seven seconds! WOO!" Rhodey said with a smile, gladly accepting ten dollars from Happy on their way towards where Gene stood.

"Bobby!"

Gambit ran towards his friend, who was still in a heap on the floor, breathing harshly, bleeding from his broken nose and glaring at a smiling Gene. "Are you alright?"

Iceman did not respond; his anger and humiliation keeping him from uttering a word. He watched Gene straighten his clothes, turn around in place to meet Rhodey, who was handing him back his rings, and not a second after Gene took his first step towards the exit, Bobby acted without rational thought.

The ice spear was born from his left hand, as his right arm was still in too much pain to even be lifted from the floor. The sudden move made Gambit trip on his own two feet when he backed away from the path of the thick, sharp ice weapon, as it continuously grew from his fingertips, headed straight to Gene Khan's back.

The Mandarin barely had time to half-turn where he stood, aim his palm towards the ice spear, see its tip pierce his hand from one end to the other, and then command his Makluan energy to eat away the ice lance, as if devouring it molecule by molecule, heading right back to its source.

Ice and quantum-dot energy burst in Bobby's face, signaling the end of their fight, and without a second look, Gene walked out of the gym, leaving everyone else in the room wondering where the hell had Bobby Drake's mouth gone.

xxxXXXxxx

_She knocked twice on the door and waited for an instant before she was almost immediately welcomed inside the room. The small quarters where her father and her stepmother stayed were almost no different than her and Tony's, save for the significant fact that the bed was queen-sized rather than twin-sized, as theirs had been. She mentally rolled her eyes at Fury's lame attempt to keep her and Tony separated, though she did not blame him for it: she knew that he knew that they were both at their strongest when they were together._

_ Pepper remained standing near the bed, her fingers twirling fretfully and her form wobbly from shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was not even sure how to start this uncomfortable conversation with her father or if it was needed to be had in the first place, but she was already here._

_ "Everything OK, sweetie?"_

_ The redhead looked up from staring at her feet to facing Diane Potts, but she did not respond. The woman that she had once known only as a friendly and supportive SI board member and who was now, in Pepper's mind, more worthy of carrying her father's last name than she would ever be, was staring intently at her. Pepper had been surprised to find out that Diane had decided not to keep her maiden name – not even hyphenate it – despite how much prestige was attached to it. Regardless of how complicated it would be to change her last name everywhere and still maintain her personal accomplishments attached to her hard work, Diane had not hesitated to make it officially known that she had wed Virgil Potts._

_ "Pepper?" _

_When Pepper continued to be silent, Diane stood up from the bed, walked to the young woman and placed a comforting hand on her upper arm; hosting the ginger as best as she could while her father showered in the adjoining bathroom. _

"_Are you alright? Did you and Tony have a fight?"_

_ "No," Pepper said with a smile. "Tony and I are OK."_

_ "Are you sure?"_

_ "Yes," Pepper said with visible honesty. "I actually don't think that Tony and I will fight again in a long time."_

_ "Well, that's good," Diane smiled. "You two are still young and have a lot to learn. But I know you're closer than some couples I know that have been married for decades."_

_ "Uhm," Pepper did not know how to respond to that, but her flushed face told Diane she appreciated the compliment._

_ "Is something else bothering you then?"_

_ "Yes," the redhead nodded. "But, uhm… I… I… well…"_

_Diane's face was covered in authentic concern for her presence here, as well as denoted the type of tiring uncertainty that came from one day being snatched from everything you knew to be locked up underground without much say. Pepper felt as if she owed explanations to a lot of people even though Gene and Tony had already told her it was not at all her fault they were all stuck here. And while most of them would simply shrug off her feelings of guilt about placing them in this situation, she wanted to at least try to do her part._

"_Diane," Pepper began, her head hung, "I'm sorry about all this. I… I never meant for this to happen… to anyone… ever…"_

"_You never meant for all of us to be spared death?"_

"_What?" Pepper's head snapped up. "No! That's not what I meant! I meant… you know, you, Dad, everyone… to be dragged into this! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"_

_Despite Pepper's face of inconsolable despair, Diane smiled._

"_I'm sure I'm not the first one you'll hear this from, Pepper, but nobody blames you for any of this."_

"_Well, you should," Pepper grumbled, her head down again. "I mean, how else would've you ended up here if it wasn't for your connection with me?"_

"_My connection with Tony? Howard? SI?" Diane offered with a shrug._

"_But…" the ginger wanted to argue, but realize that she had nothing to counter her statement. Diane had been friends with Howard before she had even met her. Tony had gotten in the way of Doctor Doom's previous plans to blow up SI and take over the world with Gene's ring. Whether she had been in the picture or not, Diane would have probably still ended up involved in this somehow. In fact, she probably would have not survived the initial attack had she been at work in SI when the world had gotten bombed by Doom, days ago._

"_Well… I…"_

_Pepper's words were muffled by Diane's embrace. The woman was much taller than she was, so Pepper ended up barely reaching her neck._

"_I'm so happy you're OK," Diane whispered, her arms rubbing Pepper's back. "When we were told your plane had exploded… when we lost hope that you two had made it… I just couldn't believe I'd lost another daughter! It was so unfair!"_

_Pepper pulled away slightly so that she could look up at Diane's teary face, the redhead's confusion evident in her features and on the deep frown in her face. Diane shook her head, as if trying to gather her thoughts, before she invited the redhead to follow her._

"_Let's sit down, OK?"_

_Pepper did as told, intrigued by what Diane's words truly meant. As far as Pepper knew, this was Diane's first marriage. Despite her kindness, business intellect and good looks, Diane had reached the age of 40 without ever being engaged. Virgil had never mentioned that they had been expecting a baby at some point and neither had he mentioned adopting an unknown daughter of the SI board member. Nevertheless, the way Diane's hands were shaking and the look of memories flashing before her eyes told Pepper that she was about to be confided something of a rather personal level from her stepmother._

"_I had a daughter once," Diane sniffed. "Karen. A redhead, just like you. She… she could've been you in looks by now, for all I know. But even as young as she was, she was very quiet and reserved," she chuckled, "the complete opposite of you, in personality."_

_Pepper snickered and scratched her cheek. _

"_Her father… her father didn't want her. We had been dating for just a few months and I ended up pregnant… I… I wasn't supposed to get pregnant in the first place. I was supposed to be infertile."_

"_Diane," Pepper grabbed the woman's hand when she choked on her words. "You don't have to tell me this. You… you don't have to force yourself to remember it."_

"_It's OK. It's nice to have someone else to tell this to. It's been a while since I had a family. Your father and you have been so kind to me."_

"_OK," Pepper smiled. "I'm listening."_

"_Thank you," Diane smiled back, albeit only briefly. "The pregnancy was difficult, and even though I came to full term, she was born with lots of medical issues and I had to get a hysterectomy right after it. She… she died when she was two. Her heart just stopped working. She died in her sleep."_

_Pepper closed her eyes tightly, the description of what had occurred to Diane's late daughter hitting close to home, with memories of holding her own son's inert and cooling body flashing across her mind. Pepper had no idea of the eerie resemblance and memories to a devastating part of Diane's life that she had brought upon the woman without meaning to. And to think that Diane had never made mentioned of it – she had kept the obviously saddened feelings to herself._

"_When I first met you," Diane continued, "I saw my daughter in you. And I know it's not professional at all to have seen you like that since we were business partners, despite the age difference, but I did. And then I got to really know you and saw how good you were – you are – for Tony, and I went from seeing Karen in you, to seeing a little sister or a younger friend. And… well, you know the rest. And now here we are, with you as my daughter, after all."_

_Pepper nodded, her eyes on her lap, thinking thoroughly about what she had just learned. It was very surprising to her, to say the least, to see that someone who had suffered so much and had been alone for so long, could still see the best in life. In people. In her._

"_I'm sorry that happened to you, Diane. You didn't deserve it. Any of it. I… I'm not sure what else to say."_

"_Things happen for a reason, Pepper. If Karen hadn't passed, I'd have never immersed myself in my studies to distract from the pain of losing her. I would've never been at the top of my class and I would've never been recruited by Howard to serve on the board. I would've never met you or Virgil either… and I'd probably still be alone. Or worse: in danger of becoming just like Minerva!"_

"_Don't you joke about that!" Pepper said between barely contained giggles that echoed in Diane as well. "Then again, all you have to do to really be like Minerva is try to get it on with Tony in his office… in the middle of the day!"_

"_Oh, my God! Don't remind of __**that**__!" Diane shuddered, her tears finally vanishing in favor of a smile. "If that bitch had tried to do that to __**my**__ man, I'd have popped her silicone-filled boobs!"_

"_HAHAHAHA!" Pepper was practically snorting, almost having forgotten how colloquial Diane could be. For a second, it felt like old times for them, when Pepper was still part of the board and had to fill-in for Tony. It was just like when Trish, Diane, Howard and herself would get together and act like themselves without the business etiquette constraints that came with interacting with the board._

"_Who are you talking about?" Virgil's voice startled them. His hair was still damp and he had a towel wrapped around his neck to catch some of the trickling droplets of water. "I can think of a few people, but… Well, you know what? I rather not know."_

"_Dad!" the redhead jumped from the bed and ran to her father, hugging him as if she were three years-old again, hitting Virgil with a little too much force for his age._

"_Are you trying to get permission to do something you're not supposed to do, Patricia?" he joked and hugged her back. "Because whether I like it or not: you're an adult now. I can't really stop you from doing anything you want."_

"_I'm just happy to see you, Dad," Pepper said to his chest. "Everything's been so crazy and I wanted to see that you're alright."_

"_Sounds right up your alley, though," Virgil joked. "I could never keep you from staying out of trouble. That's why you're so tough!"_

"_And smart," Diane added as she too stood up from the bed and gathered a pile of clothes from one of the tables in the room. "And can put Nick Fury in his place, too."_

"_Ugh, please don't mention that man's name," Virgil scowled. "He's as arrogant as they come. He owes me two cars."_

"_Two cars?" Pepper was taken aback. "What the hell did he do?"_

"_He blew up all of our vehicles," Diane replied from the bathroom as she prepared to shower. "It kept us from leaving the house to find out what had happened, and when the 'police' showed up after we called them, it was actually Hawkeye and Widow in disguise. They took us in and told us about you and Tony. That's how we found out about all of this."_

"_You loved your car, Dad," Pepper frowned. "Couldn't he have just sent you a text message? That man's a pain in the ass!"_

"_His excuse is that us going under protection and disappearing from the grid for a bit would seem normal after a 'terrorist' attack to our property. He really doesn't know how to be subtle."_

"_No, he doesn't," Diane said. "And as much as I'd like to continue trash talking him too, I need to shower."_

"_OK," both Pepper and Virgil said as they watched the door close. Virgil then walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, only to be quickly joined by his daughter. Pepper watched him from the corner of her eye as he put on some socks and shoes in preparation for dinner time, and before he stood up to put away the towel, he eyed Pepper with a smirk._

"_What's the matter, Patricia?"_

"_What? Who? Me? I… uhm… nothing! Nothing's the matter, Dad."_

"_You stink at lying, you know that?"_

"_I…" she hung her head and pressed her hands together between her knees, "I know."_

_Virgil stood up to hang the towel on a rack on the door and he then returned to where he had been previously sitting. He rested his hands on his knees and, as he waited for the ginger to say what she had come to say, he could not help but notice that Pepper's eyes were on his wedding band._

"_We missed you there," Virgil said. "If we…" he hesitated at choosing his words. He knew she had only missed out on the wedding because she had been recovering from the loss of her son. "Only Howard and Trish were present. We would've loved to have had you there."_

"_Maybe next time?" Pepper said without thinking and Virgil raised his eyebrows, waiting for her words to sink in. "I mean! Not like that! Like, not that you and Diane will end up divorced and you marry again! I meant, like… if… after this… if after this ends and if we all… make it…"_

"_I know what you meant," Virgil smiled. "But it never gets old to see you try to fix what you say."_

"_Dad!" Pepper playfully hit him on the arm and he pretended to be hurt._

"_So? What's going on? Do I have to remind Tony of my favorite shotgun?"_

"_No!" she pouted. "Why does everyone assume that if I'm acting all weird, that it's because of Tony?"_

"_Patricia," Virgil smirked, "you've always acted weird. Don't blame Tony for it."_

_She rolled her eyes at her dad's humor, but the joy only lasted for so long. Her eyes dimmed again and the smile disappeared from her face, leaving behind only an expression of absolute sorrow. Just as Diane had so patiently done moments ago, Virgil allowed Pepper to collect her thoughts, all of which appeared to be of extreme importance for the redhead, as far as her father could tell. Years of living with his little girl had taught him many things, one of which being that, as chatty as the girl typically was, it was when important matters to her were at stake that she became practically mute._

_The silence extended for another instant, and just as Virgil was about to provide some type of physical comfort to encourage her to speak her mind, Pepper sighed and said the first thing that came to her: the one thing that abridged how she currently felt._

"_I'm not his daughter," she said between gritted teeth, a few stray tears forming and falling down her red cheeks already. "I don't care what everyone else believes or thinks they know about me and him. Finding out who he is… who I am… none of that changes anything. I will never call myself his daughter." _

_Virgil watched the ginger's angry, determined face from the corner of his eye with awe. Throughout her life, Virgil had only once seen that exact look on Pepper's face, and it had been a few years after Loretta had left them. Since the redhead had been so very young when his ex-wife had decided to pack up her things and leave, it did not dawn on Pepper the reality of their new situation until much, much later. The small child had hoped that her mother was simply away on vacation and that she would soon return. But as time went by, and as little by little everything that had belonged to her mom started disappearing from their home, Pepper's heart broke when she finally realized that her mommy was never coming back to them. To her. __**For**__ her._

_She had been a little over four years of age, and she had been standing next to Virgil by the entrance of the daycare he was to leave her at now that he was preparing her for school next year, her tiny hand in his. Virgil would never forget how much he had rehearsed how he was going to explain to Pepper why she had to stay behind while he went to work. He had feared that the child would think that now even her own father was deserting her, and that was the last thing he had wanted her to think of him. Virgil Potts loved his daughter, more than he now did his ex-wife, and nothing and no one would ever come between them – or between their father-daughter bond._

_Being the daughter of a federal agent, Virgil had taken the time to enroll Pepper in early stage martial arts classes at the community center near their apartment. He had known that she could not truly defend herself at this point, but he was aware that the more she practiced and the more she grew, the more she would be able to stand her ground against the bullies that he knew were going to pick on the fact that Pepper had 'no mommy.' Kids tended to be rather cruel, especially to those kids that lived their lives differently, even if their teasing was just a mechanism to reassure themselves that they were not in the wrong. A family was supposed to be made of a mom, a dad and kids – maybe even a dog. But in his line of duty and with his other financial obligations his former wife had left him to pay, Virgil had barely had the funds to keep his daughter and himself afloat several years after the divorce had been finalized. The only reason he had been able to afford the daycare was because their exorbitant fees were heavily discounted for government employees._

_But then, as it was still true now, Virgil Potts firmly believed his daughter deserved the best._

_That day, by the entrance of her first day at the daycare, she had acted like she always did: so innocent – so full of hope and joy, but that day Virgil had also seen a side of his little girl that he never thought existed within her. Her hand had tightened around his, her face had changed to resemble the same one she was currently sporting, right before she had said to him, with fierce fortitude: __**"It's just you and me now, right, Daddy?"**_

_And when Virgil had assented to her question, she had followed up his answer with a: __**"Forever and ever until the end of the world?"**_

_Virgil had nodded again, although he had made a mental note to later on introduce Pepper to the concept of death, when she was ready for it._

"_**OK. As long as you're still my daddy, I don't care," **__the little redhead had told him with a shrug before she had pulled him down to hug him with all her might, had kissed his cheek and had told him that she would be waiting for him to come back for her. Not once after that had Pepper ever mentioned her mother again with any kind of real emotion until the doppelganger had showed up at their doorstep, years ago. Even today, despite the patching up and the apologies, Pepper rarely mentioned Loretta's name._

_Then, just like that, snapping the man out of his thoughts, Virgil found himself being hugged by his daughter as fiercely as that day, nearly two decades ago._

"_You're still my dad," Pepper cried in his ear. "You're still the only father I know and will ever need. I… I love you, Dad."_

_Virgil tenderly hugged his daughter back, surprised that she had found it necessary to make her feelings in the matter known – especially when he did not even feel threatened by the existence of Killian in the world. He was not going to deny that, at some point, it had been heartbreaking for him to find out that Pepper's biological father was out there – but that had been before Virgil had learned what the man was up to. His heartbreak had quickly dissipated when Nick Fury had told them all about Doom and Killian's plans – how they had used his daughter for their evil needs and how they had wanted her dead when her usefulness to them had ended. How could that man, that crazy scientist that had shared with Pepper's birth mother the gift of creating life, consider himself a father? How dare he, even if he was not aware of it, give his little girl grief over his existence?_

_Even from afar, without having ever even met her, Aldrich Killian was making his daughter's life miserable. Even without meaning or wanting – or even caring enough to do anything about it – Killian had set the fate of his little girl in motion, way before Virgil had ever been in the picture; way before she had even been born. For that, Virgil Potts would never forgive the son of a bitch. And he would do whatever was in his power to make sure Killian got what he had coming; what he had earned and deserved._

_Virgil brushed Pepper's hair, just as he had done so many times in the past when her younger self had come home from school in tears after being told she was weird, and that this was the reason why she had no mom. She had never once said to Virgil the exact content or context of how she had been picked on – bullied – by her peers, but Virgil always knew. It took years and a couple of black eyes and a broken nose before the other kids had learned that picking on the redhead meant asking for a fight._

_And she had always won them all. He had taught her well._

_Nevertheless, the fight she was going be a part of soon; the fight for peace and for his grandchild, made those petty arguments with the younger fools look like literally nothing. This time, her anger would only get her so far. This time, her skills were amateur at best._

_This time, he could lose her for real. _

_This time, they could all end up dead, James Howard Stark out of their reach, Tony forever a slave to Doom's commands._

_Despite the possible grim results of what Pepper had to face, Virgil pulled her face away from his neck, brushed her hair out of her face and then smiled fondly at her. The unpretentious gesture, even though was comforting to her, renewed the flow of tears in her, simply because on some level, Pepper had feared her adoptive father would push her away. Reject her because she was the biological creation of a freak – a sorry excuse for a human being._

_She knew she was ridiculous for even thinking it could happen, but with everything that was going on, the improbable was no longer impossible._

"_You'll always be my daughter, Patricia… Pepper," he corrected himself as he dried her tears with his hands, "I'll always be your dad. And I'll always love you, too. Forever and ever. Until the end of the world."_

xxxXXXxxx

"It's a shame that: a) this _doesn't_ surprise me, and b) I know _how_ to patch it up."

"I don't know why you're even bandaging it, Pepper," Tony shrugged. His arms lazily held the genius' weight by pressing his palms against a table in their lab while he watched his wife tend to Gene Khan's ice-caused injury. "He's just gonna heal overnight. Won't even leave a scar."

"That's what I told her," Gene said as he tried to pull away from the ginger's assistance, but a glare from the woman made him roll his eyes and give in. "If you think someone needs to be patched up, it's Iceman."

"I think he should change his name," Happy said almost distractedly. "I think Hot Head fits him better."

"What about: Mouthless," Rhodey joked despite the fact that he did not condone punishment that did not fit the crime. "I didn't even know that you could do that, Gene."

"It's only temporary," Gene assured them. "If I didn't want his pathetic death on my conscience, I'd leave him like that to starve."

"Well, I'm sure he won't piss you off again," Pepper offered, finally finishing her work and giving Gene a quick, small smile. "Plus, I'm sure Professor X is gonna punish him, too."

"I'm actually shocked that he'd even _try_ something like that," Tony supplied. "I get the roughhousing and wanting to pick a fight, but trying to stab you in the back? That seems pretty vindictive for a group that has been nothing but supportive of this cause, all this time."

"Gambit was angry as hell about it," Rhodey stated. "He kept saying something about him breaking the code and whatnot."

"I don't think Scott will stand for this either," Pepper stood up and began collecting the medical supplies she had borrowed to clean up Gene's wound. As she did so, Gene gently grabbed her wrist to catch her attention and mouthed a _thank you_ only she could see. The redhead, knowing the importance of keeping Gene's persona intact, subtly winked at him in response before she walked away from the table.

"Well, that's not really our problem, unless Iceman gets in the way of the mission," Tony said and crossed his arms over his chest. "And if he does or even tries to fuck it up, I'm kicking him out."

"Speaking of which," Rhodey began, "I can't believe Fury is letting you lead this entire operation, Tony. Not that I don't trust you with it or nothing, but you'd think Fury would want full control over this mission, especially after how you almost hacked into the VTR for Pepper today."

"He, what?" Pepper slammed closed the drawer where she would now keep the first-aid kit and stared pointedly at Rhodey. "Tony did what?"

Rhodey's head recoiled, unsure about why Pepper was unaware of what had happened earlier in the virtual training area of the building. It had been hours since it had taken place; surely the couple had already talked about it at length.

"You know," Rhodey began, his right hand gesturing in a revolving motion. "Tony wanted to get you out of the training session –"

"Rhodey," Tony said between gritted teeth, his eyes wide.

"Yeah, Tony, remember? You tried to hack the VTR but Gene stopped you?"

"Rhodey," Tony said again, violently shook his head from left to right to prevent Pepper from seeing his reaction, but he was interrupted when she suddenly turned to stare at him. He simply looked to the ceiling and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

"What do you mean you don't remember?" Rhodey scoffed, mistaking Tony's shake of the head for an inability to recall the event before he turned to his left to address Hogan and elbowed him on his upper arm. "You remember, right, Happy?"

"Yeah, I remember," Happy agreed with a nod, "Tony threw a fit over it and told everyone that Gene loves Pepper."

"_What_?" her voice was more piercing than any of the men surrounding her had ever heard it before.

"What?" Rhodey rubbed his earlobes with his fingertips, shrugged, stared at Tony's angry face and then it finally dawned on him. "Huh… you _don't_ know."

"She doesn't know," Happy reiterated, also surprised that Pepper was having such an intense reaction to something that was an everyday occurrence: Tony going ape shit over Pepper's discomfort. "Wait, which part? That Tony wanted to get her out of the VTR or that Gene loves her?

"Well," Rhodey gulped. "I, uhm, not sure… and… well… Gene said that… that… Hey! Where's Gene?"

Happy stared back and forth between where Gene had been sitting, seconds ago, and a fuming Pepper glaring at Tony before he spoke once more.

"Hey, Rhodey. I think I know where Gene went."

"You do?" Rhodey asked with confusion. "Where?"

"Out of here," Happy mumbled, pointed towards the exit with his chin and then casually made his way towards it, Rhodey trailing behind. Neither Tony nor Pepper made any effort to try to stop them, and once they were alone in the lab, Pepper spoke.

"So, you _trust_ me, _do_ you?"

Tony nervously pulled on his collar and sighed.

Luckily for him, a fight was not in the cards.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm guessing that in light of the lack of reviews for the last chapter despite seeing via the stats page that many Faithful Readers visited the story, that you're not opposed to me continuing this story ^_^. As another thank you for your patience with the TWO years these stories have taken me to write them and you to read them, here's a tidbit for **another future story**, different from the ones of the TLC Saga and from the one I posted at the end of the previous chapter. Hope you look forward to this one, too!

He rearranged the goodies he had found tonight and held them in his arms as he began avoiding the traps he had set himself on his way inside the basement. He doubted he would find more food or other necessary supplies around here for much longer, but he did not dare to think about what this meant. One could only run away for so long before reality caught up with you and mocked you in the face.

It was darkly funny, a technology-obsessed inventor like him, living without society; without civilization.

He was almost near the end of the long hall of booby traps, but as fate would have it, one of the cans slid down from his arms and landed on the exact spot to set off the final line of defense against intruders. In the dead of the darkness around him he heard the expert and quick cocking of a gun before he felt the cold metal of its barrel resting on his forehead.

"Don't. Move. You've got a loaded, .357 Magnum short-barrel revolver pointed at your head and I will blow your fucking brains out if you don't do as I say."

The blue-eyed boy could not help the smile that graced his face.

"Pepper, it's me: Tony," he whispered, making sure he did not make any sudden movements or raised his voice to push her to pull the trigger. That was how the last person that had tried sneaking inside had ended up with a bullet in his head, courtesy of Patricia 'Pepper' Potts.


	7. Chapter 6

**Guest Review Responses**

**Wll: Wow! I don't even know where to start! I mean, you're awesome, so much talent for this and I REALLY hope you keep writing it, the story is so engaging... And know that with every chapter you post, you make a LOT of people happy and hopeful to read it! So that's it, among other compliments... Keep up your amazing work, Thank you! – **Aww! Thank you soooo much! You have no idea what hearing [reading] these words means to me! Just a few days ago, I realized that _The Last Month_, the first of these stories (all of the Last Chronicles stories), was posted on September 19, 2013. My goal was to finish this story, _The Last Chronicle_, on or before September 19 of this year. I don't know if I can make that deadline, though, seeing as I feel we're just halfway done with this story, and I want to keep it as coherent and engaging as I can, seeing all the stuff that's happening. I WILL DO MY BEST FOR YOU! Again, thank you so much!

**Amazing-Batman: OK...OOK...OOOKAAAYYYY... Finally cought up with this rollercoaster of emotions! I might need to read this twice though cuz my brain cells have exploded(in fact I'm surprised I still have some left...). BUT CAN WE PLEASE ADDRESS THIS ISSUE OF NO GUEST RESPONSES LIKE WHAT HAS HAPPENED?! THERE HAS TO BE A VALID EXPLANATION FOR THIS. – **LOL! I know how you feel! I've been going back to all the Last Chronicles stories to proofread them and make sure this story is still in line with what happened in the past stories, and sometimes I go: "WTF WAS I THINKING HERE? POOR PEPPER!" or, you know, 'Poor Tony,' or poor whoever I messed up when writing. I mean, I've been such a horrible person to these characters! They deserve a happy ending… but not all of them will get it :( Thank you for reading and reviewing! And sorry for the heart attacks!

**Guest: KEEP WRITING! **– Sir, yes, sir… or Ma'am, yes, ma'am… either way: YES! WILL DO! ;)

**A/N: **YAY! Guest Review loving for me again! Thank you! I see we got some new people (or some that I hadn't heard of in a while). Your reviews give me life! They're like what cookies are for Cookie Monster. I was about to get the shakes without them ;)

* * *

**Chapter 6**

The reports were finally in.

It had taken weeks and a lot of effort on the part of S.H.I.E.L.D. to get their agents around the world, as well as any assisting governments and vigilante groups, to take full stock of the situation, compile an up-to-date casualty report, and get it to the Muir Island base without being caught or intercepted.

None of the news was encouraging.

Nick Fury stared at the screens in front of him, showing a map of the world filled with green and red dots. Each green dot was a city or other significant facility that was still in proper operating condition. The red dots represented locations that had fallen under attack by Doctor Doom, and there were a startling number of them. Even more unnerving was the fact that the attacks had been in no way consistent, but had been orchestrated with specific targets in mind. It was clear that Doom had been picky and precise when staring his war; he was _not_ messing around on this.

Across Europe, the damage had not been the result of wholesale destruction. Having grown up with European history, culture and values, Victor von Doom had not wanted to destroy the symbols and landmarks with which he was familiar or admired, and the care with which he had attacked his part of the world reflected this. Cities such as London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, and Athens had been spared the most amounts of destruction and death, as only buildings that housed the seats of those countries' respective governments had been annihilated, as well as military installations. Famous structures and cultural symbols had been left intact. As a result, collateral damage in these cities was at a relative minimum. Two exceptions had been Berlin, Germany and Moscow, Russia. Evidently, there was no love lost between Latveria and Germany or Russia, and Doom had bombed their capital cities all-to-be-damned.

In Asia, South America, Australia, Africa, and the Middle East, Doom had been far less merciful. The attacks here appeared to have been done simply to further cripple the world's infrastructure and economy, as well as to lower the overall population, if only slightly. Three Chinese cities had been razed to the ground; Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, all of which had housed the Chinese seat of government or economic and financial centers. The nation was crippled to a point where recovery was going to be horrendously difficult. Tokyo, Japan, and New Delhi, India, were also burning ruins, their heritage and cultural contributions eradicated without hesitation. Doom appeared to hold no more love for the Far East than he did for the Germans or Russians.

Although not as widely recognized, the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Lima had been decimated, ruining South America's most important stock centers and tourism industries.

Sydney, Australia was simply gone. That had been possibly the most heartbreaking report that had come in. Apparently, just to show that he could, Doom had remotely hijacked an American nuclear submarine and had launched two missiles, each with a five megaton yield. The first had detonated right over the southern continent's most famous city, completely removing it from the face of the Earth and irradiating the surrounding landscape for up to an estimated one hundred miles.

The second missile had detonated over the capital of Wakanda in Africa. The Wakandan people, technologically ahead of the West by nearly half a century, had managed to put up a defensive force-field in time to block the missile and bleed away most of the radiation, but enough had still gotten through to contaminate the tiny country. By this point, nearly eight percent of the population of Wakanda's capital had died of radiation sickness.

Needless to say, King T'Challa had immediately declared war on Latveria, and had sworn a personal oath to make Doom pay for his crime against his people. The Black Panther had managed to make visual contact with Muir Island via a hidden signal that he felt confident that Doom would not be able to intercept. The African king had offered assistance in any way necessary to the resistance force, an offer that had been gladly accepted.

Johannesburg, South Africa, and Cairo, Egypt, had also suffered attacks, although Doom had taken care to avoid damage to the Egyptian museums holding historical relics from the ancient past.

In Turkey, the ancient city of Istanbul, known by many names over the course of millennia, had been pulverized into oblivion. Doom had utilized some new weapon that he had decided to test out on the beautiful city, and the warheads he had dispatched, instead of exploding on contact, had released some bizarre rotating devices that began giving off massive sonic booms that literally flattened the metropolis. Those reporting on the destruction stated that it truly looked like a giant safe had been dropped onto the city. The jewel of the Black Sea had been turned into a pancake.

Doom had also targeted major religious centers in the Middle East and elsewhere, seeking to crush any spiritual comfort people may have tried to turn to for deliverance from his wrath. In Rome, although much of the ancient city had been spared, the portion that had housed Vatican City was a black smear on the Earth now, with the heart of the Catholic faith and many of its leaders incinerated, including the Pope. The city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia had also been targeted, with Doom literally erasing the center of the Islamic faith altogether. The loss of the Kaaba was a crippling blow to Muslims around the world, exactly what Doom had intended. Jerusalem in Israel, naturally, had fallen in the crosshairs as well, and the world's most holy city was a fractured shell. The world's three main religions had viewed this city as the center of their promised lands, and the destruction of its historical markers brought about despair across the globe. And anger. Anger against the man who had destroyed everything that held hope for mankind.

In all of this, North America had suffered the least from the attacks, but had not escaped unscathed. Toronto, Canada had withstood the actual bombing quite well, but a massive fire that started from the rupturing of three separate gas lines had followed, reducing much of the city to ash.

In Mexico, Doom had made centuries of scientific predictions come true in an instant, beating the long-predicted earthquake to the punch. Mexico City, which had alternately stood and floated above the remains of a lake since its foundation in the fourteenth century, had finally sunk. Doom had not even bothered with actual bombing of the city itself, in this case. Four small missiles, each one only packing enough punch to destroy a single, moderately-sized building, had penetrated through the city streets at four specific points that the Latverian madman had determined to be weak in the overall structural support of the city. The reverberations of the explosions had resulted in a domino effect chain reaction below the surface, and within roughly two minutes, Mexico City, which was still mostly intact to the very last, finally collapsed into _Lago de Texcoco._

The United States, oddly enough, had suffered the least damage of all, although everyone involved in the resistance who knew of Doom's contempt for the West knew that this only meant that something special was in store for the Americans in the near future. Only New York City and the location of the Makluan temple in New Jersey had been attacked. Again, Doom appeared to favor historical sites such as museums and libraries, and these buildings had been left mostly untouched. The rest of New York was mostly dust now, with special emphasis on the locations where the headquarters for the two companies hosting the Stark name had been located. The United Nations building and New York stock exchange had also been primary targets. Of the great city with its famous skyline, the only remaining marker to its former beauty was the Empire State building, which still stood (albeit barely) like a headstone over Manhattan. The Makluan temple and the Iron Man armory it had housed were in a secluded section of New Jersey, but the combination of Doom's missile attack and the armory's self-destruct mechanism had left a massive crater that had claimed a portion of the nearest neighborhood to the site.

Washington D.C. had not been attacked at all, a move that was very surprising, indeed. Despite the loss of much communication, word had spread of the U.S.'s apparent fortune, with many voicing the opinion that it had been the United States itself that was responsible for the atrocities, until the official confirmation was made that the source of the attacks had been Latveria. Team Iron Man and their allies were certain that Doom had spared the American capital for when world domination had finally been achieved, at which time Doom would probably march straight into the White House and the Capitol, and force the country's former leaders to lick his metal boots while the rest of the world watched. After this, he would likely destroy Washington at last, followed by many other U.S. cities. Knowing Doom, he would want the fall of America to be as excruciating and humiliating as possible, with the whole world looking on, and as such was saving it until after he had won his war and could devote time and care to doing just that.

Finally, in addition to a few military bases here and there, Muir Island had been lightly bombarded. Nick Fury was almost certain that Doom knew S.H.I.E.L.D. was using the facility, though not necessarily for what. Surely, if Doom had known that Iron Man was located here, he would have attacked in full force to try to capture him and annihilate everyone else. No; Fury was pretty sure that Doom had figured out from the start that the "death" of the Starks in the plane explosion had been a scam, but did not know where they were located. His attack on Muir Island was simply a way to let them know that he knew something was being done there to try to fight back, and he had taken the time to shake them up a little; let them know he was on to them.

Fury sighed and looked away from the map of the destroyed cities and focused on the casualty reports on the table next to him. The attacks had lasted only about thirty minutes from the first strike on the Makluan temple to the last known impact – Hong Kong – and no other attacks had followed in the weeks since, but the human effects had continued on long after the bombings had ceased.

At this time, with the world's most populated cities having been targeted, it was estimated that anywhere from sixty-five to eighty million people were dead, either directly from the attacks, the resulting fires and collapses, medical conditions developed as a result of these conditions, or due to lack of food and water in the areas surrounding these cities after production and trade had halted. Famine and disease were sure to be on the rise in the coming weeks and months. A good fifteen million survivors were injured in some fashion, and fifteen million more were still missing or otherwise unaccounted for.

All in all, Doctor Doom had accomplished, in less than an hour, more than what the entire Second World War achieved over a course of years. What was sure to be written into history books as the Doom War (assuming that Doom was ever defeated) was nothing more or less than the most devastating single event in human history.

A few retaliations had already been tried within a week following the attack. Of particular note, a coalition of Russian, Israeli, Greek, Turkish and Italian military forces had pooled together to storm Latveria and wipe out its capital city, Doomstadt, with particular emphasis on Castle Doom. The Greek members of this force had actually been an army almost exclusively made up of women – surviving wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and girlfriends of men who had been in Greece's army, nearly all of whom had been killed in the attacks on the Greek military targets. The result was a practical living river of female revenge, prepared to stop at nothing to honor the memories of their fallen men. In an unprecedented and nearly unfathomable display of soldierly goodwill and camaraderie, the men who made up nearly the full extent of the other armies joining the force had showed no exception or disapproval to the women-composed army whatsoever, and had welcomed them into the counter attack effort as if greeting longstanding brothers-in-arms – or _sisters_-in-arms, as was the case this time. The jets, tanks and troops of this force had rolled right through the tiny European country with no resistance from its population, eventually surrounding the Latverian capital city, and finally launching a single, massive attack.

In typical fashion, the tiny nation's tyrannical leader had showed his hand as technologically superior to all as his sole method of attack. Without even using his own armaments, Doom had eradicated the invasion force in minutes. Using some form of technology that one could only assumed had been learned from studying the Makluan ring that had once been in his possession, Doom had caused all incoming projectiles, including bombs and bullets which did not have guidance systems of any kind, to literally _bend_ away from their paths of impact on the capital city and to return right back to their points of origin. Seemingly before the attack had begun, the response coalition army had been obliterated with their own weapons, practically on Doctor Doom's own doorstep.

It did not matter if one stared at the map left or right, up or down, near or far; the world's infrastructure and population had suffered greatly under the scientist's fury – and knowing Doctor Doom, it could have been much, much, much, MUCH worse than it actually was. It could have been devastating without a chance of redemption. It could have been planetary-scale annihilation. It could have been the world imploding from the inside out.

Perhaps those were going to be Doom's next steps. At this point, no one really knew what was to come.

"Our allies are going to be rather upset by this," Fury said with a sigh, his spirit broken after reviewing the data over and over again, as if willing it to change if he stared at it long enough but finding his efforts nothing more than wishful thinking.

"I know I am," Maria Hill replied, her saddened eyes also scanning the summary of the reports they were about to hold a meeting for in order to relay them to everyone in the base.

"If they're smart, this will motivate them."

"I think motivation is not something they lack, sir."

"Maybe not now," Fury lowered his head, his eyes denoting the million thoughts that currently crossed his mind. "But when they're finally out there, in the field… in battle… When giving up someone's life becomes the only chance they have to save the entire world, knowing what they're fighting for is what will make someone become a hero – a martyr. The motherfucking savior of the world."

"That's where you're wrong, Director Fury," Maria said pointedly, her eyes now on his. "Agreeing to this. Training like this. Getting ready to walk into battle against someone like Doom knowing they'll probably die in the process," she shook her head. "They're already heroes, in my book."

Fury scoffed, turned in place when he heard the door opening behind them, signaling the members of the resistance army were starting to arrive for the meeting, and then voiced his final thought.

"You need to raise your standards in that hero book of yours, Hill."

"I probably should," she replied with a smirk as she too turned around to welcome the trickling guests. "But if I did, _you_ wouldn't have a place in it… _sir_."

Fury's reply was drowned out by the loud arrival of Team Iron Man.

xxxXXXxxx

_It was way past the island's official night curfew, but she truly did not give a damn. She would work all night if she had to, if only to make sure that Fury did not try again to push a survival instinct out of someone who could not amount to doing so on his timetable. She should have known better than to trust Nick Fury to leave the safety protocols intact, but yet there she had been, a few hours ago, fighting for her life against mini-Makluan Overlords._

_ Tony had said that he would look into the protocols in the morrow; that he would fix them and make sure no one other than he could remove them, but Pepper did not want to wait that long. It was not so much that the task needed to be completed right this very moment, and it was not as if she did not trust Tony to do what he said he would do with the same or even more dedication and success than she was currently having; it was just that after finding out that he had doubted her – even if just for a second and even if only because she had been screaming bloody murder to be helped – she had needed some space from him._

_ She had needed to do something right, all by herself, without anyone's help, pity or doubt._

_ She was not even mad at Tony for it – they had not even fought about it after Gene, Happy and Rhodey had left the lab. Tony had simply said aloud what she already knew about them together: that he could not help his instinct to protect her, no matter what the situation was. He did not tell her anything new. She was keenly aware of how much Tony loved her and would do anything for her – just as she would for him. Yet, the doubt that he had felt about her abilities in the field had been a hit to her self-esteem. Not because Tony was wrong about doubting her, but because she knew that he __**had**__ been right to do so._

_The VTR experience, although fake yet challenging to her, had proven that she had much to learn and much to do if she wanted to be ready to help save the world and bring back her son, starting with attaching herself like a leech to Gene to learn more about what her Extremis abilities could do for her. She knew that Tony would be somewhat upset by this, but there was no one else on the blasted island that would understand her new skills better than someone who had helped her develop a way of somewhat controlling them, even if he had not known it at the time. Her particular abilities related to a plane of existence different than the one everyone else tended to live in, and this seemed to be right up Gene's alley: seeing what was unseen to the naked eye._

**Poor ****Gene**_, the redhead sighed, suddenly feeling even that much more exasperated by the entire situation today during training. She was not sure what she was more upset about: Nick Fury messing with their code, Tony not trusting her, or Gene's feelings for her being exposed the way they had been – or being exposed at all. She knew how personal these things could be, especially for Gene, not to mention the fact that she had some experience with people knowing she had feelings for someone who did not return the sentiment._

_ "Some experience?" she scoffed derisively, thinking back on her crushes and how Tony and Scott had been the only ones she had been attracted to that had also shown genuine interest in her. _

_Actually, now that she thought about it further, her husband did not even really belong on that list, since she had gone a while having a crush on him and he had not noticeably displayed how he felt for her. She now knew that he had found her at least the tiniest bit eye-catching since meeting her, but the issue was that he had not recognized nor acted upon that attraction until much later – almost two years after their first meeting, to be exact. Even more depressing so was the fact that the only man that had immediately pursued her after finding her not bad to look at, had been Scott. And she was almost certain that, had she and Tony been involved at the time of meeting Cyclops, she would have politely declined Scott's advances from day one._

_Gene did not make the list, since he had only started to truly become interested in her after she had already moved on and returned to crushing on Tony. Happy did not count, either, as she had not had a crush on him at first, and neither had he had one on her. Their dating had started off as a sham; just a way for her to save-face in front of Whitney and to make Tony jealous and feel what she felt as he dated the blonde. They had started to like each other along the way, sure, but it was not the same as how she had started liking the other men, and for her, it had reached its limit and could go no further. In that instance, __**she**__ had been the cause of that depressing feeling for Happy, to her disgust._

"_I wrote the fucking book on it," she added, almost angry at herself for it being true, to the dark and empty room right before she felt him appear in the room, standing by the corner of it, if her senses were correct. _

_He did not make any attempt to get near her and continued to make no sound, so she decided to ignore the newcomer for now in favor of finishing up what she had begun to do hours ago. Once the code was eventually running to her liking, she pulled away from the screen, rested the back of her neck against the top of the chair and looked towards the ceiling as she spoke again._

"_Are you having a case of insomnia or did Fury send you to keep an eye on me?"_

_The man did not respond to her, prompting her to close her eyes and sigh. "I know you're there. I felt you the moment you got here about…" she quickly glanced at the clock on the computer screen before her and then closed her eyes once more, "forty-five minutes ago."_

"_Pardon my intrusion, _**Liebchen**_," Nightcrawler said in a soft tone, knowing now without a doubt that he had been found. "My presence here is without ill."_

"_I know that much," Pepper swiveled the chair to face the corner where he still hid from her. "You don't seem like the kind of person that would spy on me to hurt me, even if Fury made you do it." _

_Kurt was using his feet to attach himself to the wall and balanced his weight with his back resting against it, his legs bent at the knee. The room was dark save for some light that came from the computer screens. Yet, thanks to what Nick Fury had forced her to do during training, she could clearly see Kurt's body-shaped aura and that in one hand he held a rosary while in the other he held a book that Pepper assumed was the Bible. She had seen the man carrying both items almost daily since they had met, and while she was not an avid religious person, she tended to acknowledge, respect and know more about it than her husband did._

"_Did I interrupt your prayer?" she asked with a guilt-ridden frown. "I'm sorry if I did."_

"**Nein**_," Kurt shook his head. "I'd just finished the day's reading before I started searching for you. Your husband told me you might be here."_

_Pepper chuckled. "You can call him 'Tony,' you know? And you can also call me: Pepper. We're not that old."_

_Nightcrawler smirked and nodded twice. "Understood."_

"_So?" Pepper shrugged. "What can I help you with?"_

_After her simple, unassuming question, Kurt's face fell almost immediately. He jumped off the wall to gracefully land on the balls of his feet, almost silently so, before he then sat on the floor, cross-legged, his face stern._

"_My lady –"_

"_Pepper."_

"_Pepper," Kurt stated with an even deeper frown. "That is a condiment, is it not?"_

_Pepper held back a chuckle and dismissed his confused look with a quick shake of her hand. "Yup. Just roll with it."_

_Kurt nodded again. "I… I wanted to speak with you to apologize on my friend's behalf. He spoke crudely of you. He harmed your friend. He broke the code. But I assure you: he learned. It will not happen again."_

_Pepper shrugged, her body further slouching in the chair. "All he said about me was just to rile up Gene. He didn't mean any of it. I'm actually kinda sorry that my friend popped your friend's shoulder out of its socket. Gene, he… he sometimes forgets how much damage he can inflict on people. It's rare that he forgets, but he does."_

"_Well, to be fair: your friend did pop it right back in, before even finishing his strike," Nightcrawler stated, still in awe that the Chinese man had been able to harm and help the same person in one swift move. "He fixed what he broke. And the mouth came back, just an hour ago."_

_Pepper barely covered a snicker with her left hand before she hurriedly cleared her throat. "Sorry. That's not funny."_

"_It kind of is," Kurt conceded._

_Pepper threw her head back in laughter, prompting Kurt to join her in her cackling attack, even if just because her uninhibited guffawing made him want to laugh, too._

"_Oh, God!" she dried tears of laughter from her eyes. "That must've been a sight."_

"_Not sure if that is the case, but it __**was**__ the longest any of us have gone not hearing Iceman speak, that's for sure."_

"_Oh, boy," Pepper shook her head, hoping another round of laughter did not incapacitate her again._

"_In any case," Kurt's face again turned somber, "He should've known better. I apologize for him."_

"_Kurt," she hesitated. "Can I call you: Kurt?"_

"_Of course."_

"_OK, thanks. Look, Kurt, this, whatever happened between Gene and Bobby, it's not really a big deal. At least not with my friends, it isn't. Or at least not in the way you might be thinking it is. Fighting… name-calling… teasing. It's all pretty normal for us. We all go way back. We've done worse things to each other. BELIEVE me."_

_Kurt's eyebrows shot up. "You've insulted each other's mothers?"_

_Pepper opened her mouth but closed it almost immediately, silently categorizing the circumstances of Rhodey finding out about Roberta's previous job._

"_I wouldn't use the word 'insulted' for that. No. Definitely not insulted. But we've all done things we wish we hadn't. All of us. Some of us more than others…"_

_The way in which Pepper's voice had trailed towards the end of her response and how her eyes had briefly narrowed in deep thought told Kurt there was something else that had not been stated in its entire truth. Nightcrawler, though, being who and how he was, decided that it was not his right to question her about what had been left unsaid._

"_I see."_

"_Yeah. Anyway," Pepper rubbed her tired eyes with the heels of her hands, "I think I'm done here but, I want to ask you something about what you said just now, if you don't mind."_

"_Please."_

"_What, uhm, what code," she air-quoted the last word, "did Bobby break?"_

"_Oh," Kurt's tone reflected his surprise at being posed such a simple inquiry. "The Mutant Code, of course: mutants do not harm other mutants. At least not without a good reason, and only if that reason is to save an innocent person's life."_

_Pepper frowned. "Mutant? You mean: Gene? I," she paused. "I know Gene's half Makluan but, does that really count as a mutant?"_

"_Mr. Khan is not all human. In a normal person's view, anyone with super abilities could be considered a mutant. Your husband could be one, but he has the advantage that he can turn off that side of him, and he was not born like that. Mr. Khan was born being different, but he is more, in my opinion, alien than mutant."_

"_Oh," Pepper shrugged. "So, I guess hurting anyone that could resemble a mutant is against mutant code?"_

"_Yes, in essence. Harming someone just because they're different is, at its most basic, against the teachings of our Lord," Kurt lightly waved his Bible to emphasize his point. "However, some people need laws and codes to be reminded that all life is precious and should be valued as if it were our own. Iceman is the type of person that needs a reminder here and there. And that day, when we all met for the first time, he forgot that you too, are one of us."_

"_What?" Pepper shook her head and pointed a finger toward her chest. "Me? A mutant?"_

"_Why, yes!" Kurt smiled. "A rather remarkable one. Resilient despite the times you were close to meeting our creator. Mindful of people's feelings and thoughts, even when they differ from yours. Compassionate even though kindness has not been extended to you all the time. You may not carry the mutant gene in your blood, but you were born with abilities that no normal human has, and like many of us, they did not reveal themselves until many years after your birth. You may not be the classic definition of a mutant, but in our book, a mutant is more than just what some people call a mishap of nature." _

_Pepper was at a loss. Her eyes traveled down from staring at Kurt's jovial ones to looking at the floor between her feet. She multiple times repeated his words in her head, all the while thinking about her own experience with and her initial thoughts regarding mutants, and she sighed when she realized what she had to do._

"_I broke the code, too, Kurt," she began. "I… at some point in my life, I wanted all mutants to be identified. I was afraid of them. I didn't even want to associate with any mutants and thought they all belonged away from normal humans. I treated Jean rather differently, because of that belief. Because I was scared of what she could do."_

"_But, you dated Scott, did you not?"_

"_I did. But, I didn't know he was a mutant until he broke up with me. And when I was pregnant, I first thought Scott was the father. And I was terrified that my son would turn out to be a mutant because of it. Which, I know now that it was pretty stupid of me to think that because… because, I guess you're right: Tony is kinda of a mutant. And so am I. More than he is, actually. And my son…"_

"_Will be OK," Kurt assured her. "All three of you: Tony, you and your son, all look normal. What you can do, only a few know of it, and you were already born to a group of people that will support what you do and who you are, no matter what. The world already saw you as heroes, even before you signed up for this, and they don't yet know that you're –"_

"_An accident? A failure of science?" Pepper swallowed hard, remembering the words Maya had uttered about the circumstances of her conception, and of how Killian had seen her as nothing more than a fiasco when it had turned out she had not right away displayed signs of carrying Extremis as he had anticipated that she would. "An unexpected genetic screw up? A big, fat mistake?"_

"_God does not make mistakes, Pepper. Just like with all of us, He has a plan for you."_

"_Die trying to kill Doom? Make sure I take everyone down with me when I fail?"_

"_Change the lives of others. Be what your loved ones need you to be. A friend. A daughter. A wife. A mother. An inspiration. You."_

_Pepper scoffed, not immediately buying Nightcrawler's words._

"_It sounds good and all, Kurt, but everyone in this suicide mission is counting on me making sure I make it to the power core and shut it down. And today… today I'm sure I didn't give them much hope that I can do what I have to do. I mean, I thought I could do it. I asked Tony to believe in me, to trust me. But after today… I don't even trust myself."_

"_And that's why I'm here," Nightcrawler stood up from the floor, walked slowly toward the redhead until he was a mere foot from her sitting position and then grabbed her hands in his. "Because my mission, what God has told me to do, is to make sure __**you**__ believe in me, in all of us, because __**we**__ believe you __**can**__ do this. But we cannot do any of this without your help."_

"_Kurt, I… I don't –"_

"_You're the only person on the planet that is immune to Doctor Doom's brainwaves."_

"_And Jimmy –"_

"_Is here because of you. Because you exist and, without you, he wouldn't be here having the same ability to defy Doom's will. And if you weren't here, we would have no chance to stop him. We will all eventually lose ourselves when the Mainframe is activated. But you… he cannot do anything about you. You're the only one that can put a stop to him. That is no coincidence, my friend."_

"_So, what you're saying is…" Pepper sniffed. "That I was born to die a martyr?"_

"_No," Kurt gave her a smile that showed how much faith he had in her. "To live a hero."_

xxxXXXxxx

It was like being in Antarctica all over again. Yet, this time, she was not contained inside a sub, but exposed to the elements. Also, this time, Tony was not going to save her. Gene was not going to save her. She could not even save herself; because there was nothing to save or rescue, yet.

There was just the frigid cold weather making her bones quiver; the bitter and blinding snow around her body, and the slippery ice under her feet; the loud, burning and unyielding wind making it practically impossible to see where she was heading, and the knowledge that were she to take a misstep, she would take four people with her to plummet to their untimely deaths by falling down the edge of the Alps.

Nope. There was really nothing or no one that needed saving at the moment. The mission was to simply make it out of the snowstorm alive, safe and sound, and with time to spare. The current goal was just to endure.

So far, she was not faring well.

"Red, you're lagging behind again!"

Pepper could hardly hear Iceman's voice over the raging wind that now swirled around them after hitting the mountain they were trekking around on foot. The vortex it formed around their bodies on its return trip away from the natural wall of snow-covered European mountain range made them wobble precariously closer to the edge of the narrow path they were currently taking. The sudden jerk of their bodies in tandem with the blizzard-like weather made them lose their sense of equilibrium rather easily, even if just for a second, and she knew all it took was a moment of disorientation to lose sight of the two feet in width of road they were trudging along.

"I'm sorry!" she yelled over all the noise. "I can't see anything!"

"You don't have to see," a fully-transformed Bobby reminded her as he pulled on the rope that surrounded their waists and bound them together, urging her to pick up her pace. "That's my job. Just stay close to me."

"Can you see how much further we have to go?" Maya Hansen asked, third in line in their little five-person parade, her teeth rattling so hard she could have sworn she was going to end up shattering them any moment now.

"What?" Bobby asked, his face partly staring over his right shoulder.

"How much longer," Pepper repeated for the brunette and she instantly regretted picking up her face from the comfort and warmth of her scarf.

"Oh! I guess another hour or so," Bobby replied, his eyes squinted despite his entire body being encased in rock hard ice.

"Are you sure?" Black Widow yelled from her fourth position in the roped line. "My GPS says we should've arrived at the next rendezvous point about ten minutes ago!"

"We had to take a detour," Iceman replied, his voice not loud enough to carry over the unforgiving howling wind. "Tony's directions didn't match anymore."

"He, what?" Widow inquired, leaning closer to Maya's back as she sought a repeat of his response and despising the fact that they could not use communicators to stay in touch.

"He said he had to detour," Maya reiterated. "Map didn't match anymore."

"WHAT? _You_ decided _we_ needed to detour? That's not how it works!" Widow snarled. "You're not the leader of this team, Iceman! I am!"

"Can't hear you," Bobby replied, and even though he had not actually heard every single word Natasha had said, he had an idea of what she had just stated as he had known all along that she would balk at his decision the moment she realized what had taken place without her input.

"Should I go ahead?" Kurt, the last in line, asked of their team leader.

"No," Natasha replied. "We're not supposed to split up! _And_, we're not supposed to deviate from the path!"

"Is she still bitching?" Iceman asked Pepper.

"She's pissed," the redhead replied. "But she's right, you know? We're supposed to stay on the path that Tony traced for us so that Arthur can track our progress and report it to Howard and T'Challa."

"Well, the road was blocked by a mountain of snow. There was nothing we could've done but to go around."

"Kurt could've teleported us to the other side of it," Pepper suggested.

"Nope," Iceman shook his head. "He's not supposed to use his powers unless we really need them."

"But, Bobby –"

"Stop!" Pepper's words were interrupted by Widow's orders, but her command was not heeded by the first in line of the group, provoking her to raise her voice a tad more than it already was. "Didn't you hear me, Drake? STOP!" Natasha screamed at the top of her lungs. "I said: _STOP_!"

"She wants us to stop," Pepper rested her hand on Bobby's shoulder. "We should really stop."

"And do what?" Bobby screamed back at Widow, completely ignoring Pepper's plea. "Set camp where we stand and drink some fucking tea? I'd like mine with ice, _please_!"

"Dammit, Bobby! STOP RIGHT NOW! WE'RE LOST!"

"Bobby, she thinks we're lost," Pepper leaned closer to the man, cut the distance between them, spoke softly to him, and hoped that he would remember that if he and Widow were in disagreement, the ginger's word became the tie-breaking one. "Let's just stop for a second and find our bearings."

"Pepper, it's not safe to just_ stand_ here."

"I know, but, it's not safe to argue either. We just need to regroup a little."

"No," he shook his head. "And tell her to stop screaming! This place is very unstable and if she keeps blowing her gasket, it's gonna cause an –"

"AVALANCHE!"

The words were spoken as loudly as the brunette could utter them in an effort to somehow spare them from the cascade of danger befalling them, but Maya's warning came too late. The landslide of snow, rocks and jagged ice easily pulled on their roped entourage, taking with it all five members of the team. In less than a second, the trail they had just been walking on became history, leaving the five of them dangling from the edge of the avalanche-unaffected path.

Kurt was the first victim of it all when he became unconscious after a large boulder hit him in the head, turning him into nothing more than dead weight at the end of the rope. Widow aimed her two trekking poles towards the mountain in an attempt to slow down their downward path by trying to stab them against the ice. All she managed to do was to break her right wrist and stab her left thigh with one of the poles in doing so, the second flying out of her hand in a spiraling motion. Maya, the least athletic of the bunch, slammed her face on the wall of ice on her way down, and she was now freely bleeding while dangling upside down. Pepper's left arm was being held by Bobby, and her right arm grabbed onto Maya's left ankle, attempting to minimize the weight the rest of the bodies placed on Iceman's back and preventing the brunette from slamming her body against the frost once more as the snow, rocks and ice continued to trickle next to them.

It had all happened in the blink of an eye, and they all now depended on Bobby's ability to hold on to the entire group's weight by his one-handed grip on the ice axe he had managed to stab into the mountain, seconds before the landslide pushed them off the path. The orographic change near them enlarged the space available for the blizzard to hit them harder than before, and what had been uncomfortable and highly difficult just moments ago, had suddenly become overly dangerous and life-threatening.

"Dammit!" the conscious X-Man spat. "Is… is everyone alright?"

"Kurt's out, but he's still attached to us," Widow said between clenched teeth before she pulled the pole out of her thigh and tossed it towards the abysm below them, the pain of her broken wrist sending spikes of ache up and down her arm.

"I think Maya's bleeding," Pepper said, her eyes narrowed as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing below her. "I think… I… Oh, no!"

"What?" Widow asked, her head shaking left and right to get rid of some of the snow on her face. "What do you see?"

"Maya? Maya, say something!"

"What's wrong, Pepper?" the redhead's panicked tone set off all types of bells within Iceman. "What happened to Maya?"

"I… can't… breathe…" the brunette's hand flew to her neck.

"I think… I think I see something _dangling_ from her neck!"

"What? What is it?" Widow frowned.

"I can only see the outline of it," Pepper called onto her aura seeing ability. "It's cold and long and pointy and… and…"

"And what?" Natasha asked, but the moment the now river of blood began dripping onto her and then said artifact that Pepper had described all but dashed past Romanoff's face, Widow finally realized what she had accidentally done.

Her trekking pole, the one that had flown out of her broken wrist, had pierced Maya Hansen in the neck, through clothes and all.

xxxXXXxxx

_"Do you think I'm a mutant?"_

_ Tony looked away from the electronic tablet in his hands to stare to his right at Pepper's back, startled that she was speaking to him at all. She had gone to bed about an hour ago, shortly after returning from coding in the safety features into the VTR that Fury had removed, but she had not said a word to him since arriving to their quarters. Tony had not pressed the matter and had not tried making any conversation with her, knowing by now that it was best to just let her open up to him when she was ready to do so._

_ It appeared that the time was now._

_ "I'm sorry, what?"_

_ "A mutant," she repeated, her back still to him while they both lay in the bed. "Do you think I'm a mutant?"_

_ "Why? Because of Extremis?"_

_ "Yeah."_

_ "No," Tony shook his head lightly even though she was not facing him. "I don't think so, Pep. And if you are one, then so am I. And who cares if we are mutants. I, personally, don't give a fuck."_

_ Tony waited a few seconds to see if his wife would say or do anything else, but when she continued to be as still as a rock and as quiet as a mouse, he returned his attention to the tablet once again. He had gone from using a paper map to digitizing his efforts to create a plan to get everyone to Latveria, seeing as the information changed so much. He still had to wait for the final analysis, per city, of how the world currently faired after Doom's attack, but it would be another week before those results were expected to come in. For now, he had to work with what he had, and what he did not have, all the same._

_ "Kurt thinks I'm a mutant. He said Bobby broke mutant code by harassing me and attacking Gene."_

_ "Who cares about breaking the mutant code," Tony stared at her back again. "He hounded my wife! He's lucky Gene got to him first."_

_ "Tony!" Pepper sat on the bed and finally twisted her body to eye the inventor. "I'm serious! The X-Men think I'm one of them!"_

_ "No, yeah, I got that part," he put the tablet on the ground before he shifted his body so that he faced her almost completely, their knees touching. "I just don't see what the big deal is, Pepper. Being a mutant, by definition or by principle, doesn't mean anything."_

_ "Tony, don't you see the fucking irony of it?" Pepper's unusual use of expletives told the genius that the topic at hand was rather important to her._

_ "Which one? That you didn't think of me as a mutant until now and realize that not only did you date one once, but you married one, too? That you didn't want Howie to be one, but he is? That the X-Men think that you're one and that's the last thing you wanted to be?"_

_ "YES!"_

_ "Pepper," his voice softened. "What difference does any of it make? Do you love me less now that you know that I could sort of be considered a mutant?"_

_ "No," she shook her head almost incredulously that he would even consider that her feelings for him would change because of it._

_ "Do you not want our son back because he's a mutant?" he air-quoted the last word._

_ "No! I still want Jimmy back."_

_ "Do you think I love you any less because you can see what others can't?"_

_ "I…" she looked away. "I hope not."_

_ Unsatisfied with her response, he used his left hand to redirect her face back to staring at his. He then gave her a look that showed how unhappy he was with her current train of thought, and that he expected her to remove all traces of uncertainty from her mind._

_ "I…" she tried looking away from him again, but he kept her face from doing so. "I know you don't. I… I know it's stupid, Tony. But… can you blame me? I guess I'm still adjusting to what's gonna be the norm now. I thought I was over it, you know? I thought it didn't matter to me what Killian thought he had made me for. But, I guess there's still some doubt in there."_

_ Tony gave her a warm smile he augmented by rubbing her cheekbone with his thumb. _

"_Doubting is not a bad thing, Pep. It helps you ask questions that you wouldn't otherwise even consider. Just don't let it keep you from seeing what reality is. And the reality is that there's a lot of people that care for you," he used his free hand to grab hers and pressed her right palm onto his chest, "that love you. That'd do anything for you. People that don't give a __**shit**__ about who or what you are or may be."_

_ Pepper closed her eyes briefly while she nodded to him, and when she opened her eyes once more, she closed them again almost immediately when she felt his forehead resting on hers. She pulled her hands from his grip to rest them on the sides of his neck, and she then pressed her lips against his a few times._

_ "Would you really do anything for me, Tony?" she inquired._

_ "Yes," he kissed her. "Anything, Pepper."_

_ "Then, would you help me think of something else other than Doom, mutants and broken codes? Just for a while?"_

_ "You didn't even have to ask," he whispered huskily to her before he hungrily captured her lips with his._

xxxXXXxxx

"She's bleeding out!" Widow said. "We need to stop the bleeding!"

"With what?" Bobby spat. "You want to finish the job and choke her with her own scarf?"

"Shut up!" Natasha replied. "You're not helping!"

"Neither of you are!" Pepper said as she tried to get a better view of the extent of Maya's injury, but found it difficult to do with the reduced visibility and their current wobbly positions.

"Pepper, stop moving," Bobby ordered after a short exhale of air from his mouth. "I'm barely holding on here!"

"Natasha, can you reach her?"

"I'm trying, Potts!" Romanoff responded, her own movements limited by Kurt getting caught between her feet.

"Try harder! I'm starting to slip!" Bobby yelled as he began to feel his iced hand giving up on holding to the axe.

"Attach your body to the mountain!" Natasha commanded.

"I can't! I need my hands for that!" Bobby retorted.

"Then let go of me," Pepper offered. "We're still attached by the rope. Let me go. I'll be fine."

"No!" Bobby shook his head and gritted his teeth when yet another inch of grasp was lost. "I'm not releasing you!"

"You have to!"

"No! The rope won't support all of us! It'll snap!"

"Bobby, let go. I have to help Maya!" Pepper tried to pull away from his grip, but he refused to free her.

"Ugh! HURRY UP, Widow!" Iceman replied.

"I can't stop the bleeding!" Widow announced. "I can't! I need a —AAAAHH!"

The second landslide was a lot less forgiving than the first, its weight almost immediately doubling the burden Iceman was already carrying. The subsequent round of uneven pour of snow and ice made the rope stretch to its limit only to then bounce back, as if it were nothing more than a never-ending bungee cord ride.

Except, that it was not.

"Pepper! Hang on!" Bobby grunted as he increased the grip on the redhead's arm in anticipation for the brutal hit of gravity and physics they were about to experience.

"What?"

No sooner than Pepper's single word left her, the ginger witnessed, in utter shock, what Iceman had meant by his warning. He momentarily released his hold on her, but he only did so that a spike of ice that emerged from his now free hand could extend towards the portion of the rope that bound Pepper and Maya together, and he quickly snapped the cord with a clean cut. The ricochet effect on the loss of the three bodies of Maya, Widow and Kurt caused Pepper to bounce up, allowing Iceman to slip off the axe, freefall until he and Pepper were aligned in midair, and then grabbed her by the waist.

"NO!"

Bobby pressed the ginger to his body, twisted in the air, and then used his previously overly-stretched arm to create an upwards path of ice towards the edge of the mountain, allowing for him and Pepper to safely land back on the narrow patch of land, all the while ignoring the echoing sounds of his comrades being lost to the abyss.

xxxXXXxxx

_He was surprised to see that his father was shakily holding a bag of ice to Trish's hand, but only because for an instant he had forgotten where the woman's fist had been, just minutes ago. Even though everyone had left the meeting room to rest for the day, Howard had led his wife to the closest lunchroom and had asked the attendant there for something to reduce the rapid swelling Trish's knuckles were suffering from. Tony had come to the cafeteria to get himself and Pepper something to drink before they too faced the demons that had been unleashed today, and he already anticipated that his redhead would be fairly upset after finding out some rather painful facts about her life._

_ It appeared to Tony that he and the ginger were not the only ones who would speak words that needed to be said._

_ "I told you I'm OK, Howard," Tony heard Trish say while she bid to pull away from his father's tight grip. "This is not really necessary. But if you insist on me doing this, then let me ask for a bucket filled with ice and we'll have this to go, OK? You need to rest."_

_ "I'm fine," Howard replied, not yet realizing that his son was nearby, witnessing the scene. "I'm not the one who punched Nick Fury in the face."_

_ "He deserved it," Trish defended herself._

_ "I know. He did. He does. And then some…" _

_Now that they were out of the meeting room and reality was hitting him harder than it had the moment he had found out about certain delicate incidents of his past, Howard was having a difficult time forming coherent sentences to reflect his thoughts. Despite the fact that Trish had known him for many years, in all that time, she had never beheld this side of him before. He seemed anxious, confused and very upset; almost as if he was expecting the world to collapse on itself and take everything and everyone down with it._

"_I-I should've punched him too, or… instead of you. Please, don't do that again, Trish."_

_ The brunette was visibly taken aback by Howard's request. She would have happily punched Fury a few more times if it had not hurt her like hell. _

"_Are you mad at me for it or something?"_

_ "No! Of course not!" Howard instantly replied, his voice much louder than what was necessary. "It's just… just, don't put yourself in danger like that again, please. I… I…"_

_ "Fury's not Killian, Dad," Tony said from his standing position, a couple of feet away from the bench his father and stepmother sat on. "They're both asses, but Fury knows better. I think."_

_ "Tony," Howard began, but he then closed his mouth when Trish interrupted the rest of his response._

_ "Knows better about what?" Trish's confusion was evident on her face, her head shifting from staring at her husband to staring at her stepson._

_ "Trish, it's nothing, really… it's…"_

_ "What's nothing?" Trish demanded of her husband. "What's going on?"_

_ "Trish, please –"_

_ "Just tell her, Dad," Tony walked closer to them, quickly being able to identify what his father's fears currently were. "Just tell her."_

_ "Tell me what? Howard: tell me __**what**__?" _

_Trish's face went from looking upset about being confused to looking scared about what was obvious to both inventors but was not to her. Howard sighed loudly and gave his son a face that denoted he was not happy he was meddling in his personal affairs, but Tony understanding what was crossing his mind was a testament that it was more than just care and piety that ran in the Starks. In the end, however, the man knew that he and his son shared more than just DNA and a last name, and that just as they were due for a conversation to sort their feelings regarding today's events, so did Trish deserve to know what was currently making him shake where he sat._

_ "We'll talk later, OK?" Tony said when he recognized the look on his father's face that he and his wife needed some privacy. "Tomorrow, maybe?"_

_ "Yes," Howard agreed. "Tomorrow, Son."_

_ "OK," Tony gave his father's shoulder a pat and then kissed and hugged Trish before he took a small step back from the couple. "Goodnight, Dad. Mom."_

_ "Goodnight, sweetie," Trish returned the hold and the kiss with equal fervor although she was still in awe that Tony had sporadically started speaking of her with what was such a sacred title for him, shortly after he had found out that she and Howard had wed. She knew how much that word meant to the young genius, which made her feel both honored and nervous that he referred to her as such, even just occasionally._

_ "Good night, Anthony," Howard finally said, Trish's injured hand still in his, but he then remained quiet until after Tony had grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and had then left without looking back at them._

_ "Trish, Tony's right. Fury is not Aldrich Killian, but that doesn't mean that some idiot recruit of S.H.I.E.L.D. will not hurt you if you attack their leader again. He… he definitely deserved it. There's no question about that. But please refrain from putting yourself in a situation where you… where… you…"_

_ "Can die?" Trish gulped, just now realizing how frightening her actions had truly been for her husband._

_ "Yes," he replied and looked down._

_ With her non-swollen hard, Trish grabbed Howard's free one and gave it a tight, reassuring squeeze. Howard eyed their intertwined hands for a moment before he raised his glance to silently plea to the woman before him to never again make his heart be so close to losing the will to beat._

_ "I'm sorry, Howard," she said solemnly. "I… it didn't even cross my mind."_

_ "I know," he responded. "That's what worries me. That the things we don't even consider that could happen, end up being the ones that take place."_

_ "You're right," Trish shrugged and pulled her good hand away from his. "I never considered the possibility of marrying my boss. And maybe I shouldn't have."_

_ "No, Trish. This… this is not about you."_

_ "I understand that. This is about Maria and about what happened to her. What should've __**never**__ happened to her, or to you, or to Tony."_

_ "But, it did. It did happen, Trish. And I don't want to lose you, too."_

_ Trish gave him a small, saddened smile and then looked away from him._

_ "We've never talked about it because… because there's no point to it, I guess. But, I know I'm not Maria, Howard. I could never fill her shoes. I don't intend to, and I hope that whatever I can give you is enough. I… I'll never hold a candle to her. But I love you, and I love Tony. And… if she were still around, I'd still be just as happy to continue being your assistant. I… I could go back to that, if you needed me to. If… if you now want me to since… since…"_

_ "Mr. Stark," Jarvis sudden voice said, startling both Howard and Trish out of their wits. "Is Mrs. Stark doing OK? Miss Arborgast told me about the injury. I've brought a first-aid kit with me, if you require it."_

_ Howard eyed the kit under Jarvis' arm and then stared at Trish's hand that was now starting to show signs of bruising, so he accepted his butler's offer without a second thought._

_ "Thank you, Jarvis. I'll take it from here."_

_ "You are very welcome, sir. I'll be in my quarters should you need anything else. Good night, Mr. Stark. Mrs. Stark."_

_ "Good night, Jarvis," the couple said in unison, both remaining silent until Edwin joined Bambi at the exit of the cafeteria and then left a second after that. While Howard inspected the contents of the first-aid kit, Trish's mind replayed Tony's and Jarvis' addressing to her, and had she allowed her fear to take over the reservations of her heart, she would have tuned out Howard's next words._

_ "I love you, Tricia," Howard smiled fondly at her, his fingers carefully rubbing lidocaine onto Trish's knuckles. "There's no doubt in me about that."_

_ "Will that be enough, though? For you? For us? For this to work?"_

_ "It is for me if it is for you. I'm not a teenager, Trish. I'm not 'trying things out.' I know what I want, and I want you. I also know what I don't want, and I don't want to lose anyone else to senseless killing."_

_ "I'll never be Maria, Howard," she whispered._

_ "I wouldn't want you to," he replied as he finished bandaging her hand and beamed proudly at his work. Trish pulled her hand away from him, stared at the convoluted result of his aid with a chuckle, and then began removing the cloth with a smile._

_ "What are you doing?" Howard frowned._

_ "You've never patched up someone before, have you?"_

_ "Uhm…"_

_ Trish giggled and shook her head. "It's OK. I finally get to teach __**you**__ something."_

_ "Who says you haven't already?" Howard tilted his head as he waited for her reaction to his response, but when she continued to look dumbfounded after several seconds had gone by, he raised a single brow to inaudibly relay the hidden meaning of his retort._

_ "Oh," the woman's face reddened almost immediately when she finally understood what he was referring to. "Oh… well… uhm…"_

_ Her gaze lowered and her voice left her, and as she began shaking in embarrassment from feeling at a loss on how to gracefully reply to her husband's revelation, Howard Stark was reminded once again why the discreet woman he had known for years had caught his eye._

xxxXXXxxx

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Pepper asked, her eyes large and red with anger as she tried to hit Iceman on his chest with her fists to no avail due to the closeness of their bodies. Her back was pressed against the mountain and she was towered over by Iceman's tall form; his front flushed against hers and his hands on either side of her head. "How could you do that to them?!"

"They were done," Iceman argued, his eyes piercing hers. "Kurt was probably bleeding in the head after a blow like that, Widow was trapped between him and Maya, and Maya had a fatal wound in the neck. They would've slowed us down!"

"But, you didn't even try! You didn't let _me_ try!"

"Try what, Red? It was us or them!"

"NO!" she shook her head at him. "NO! That's _not_ how this works! You're supposed to try to save people! You don't just drop them off a cliff to save yourself!"

"Not all of us have armor, Pepper!" Iceman spat even though Pepper was not to carry her armor with her until they arrived to Latveria. "Not all of us have the chance to put our high-tech armor on a pregnant woman and hope we don't die with the fall!"

Pepper inhaled sharply in surprise. She was not aware that Iceman knew about that particular incident she had been a part of during her undercover mission with the Maggia. Clearly, he had been doing his homework on them.

"I had no choice," she murmured, as if doubting her own argument when she remembered she had wanted to die that day. "Glenda wouldn't have survived the fall if I hadn't protected her with my armor."

"And _we_ had no choice and no armor! We can't let the mission be compromised by wanting everyone to live through it!"

"And we don't win the mission by failing our team!"

"We didn't fail them! _They_ failed to keep up!"

"We DID fail! WE failed! You-you just cut the rope! You didn't even hesitate!"

"And I'd do it again if I have to! My job is to – _Oh, shit_!"

Whatever Robert Drake was about to say, whatever argument he was about to use against his ward's logic, was drowned out by a third landslide that buried them both where they stood.

xxxXXXxxx

_The contrasting back-to-back visits she had just received were still making her body shake in anxiety and fear. She knew she had no right to complain about being placed in a situation where she had been yelled at by her former love and friend, only shortly after being technically pardoned by the woman she had hurt so much in so many ways, but even someone like her needed a break sometimes. Sadly for her, no respite appeared to be in sight._

_ She had assumed that as soon as Tony left the interrogation room, that agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would quickly mobilize to get her back into her cell. She was not looking forward to being locked up again – especially since they kept her under tight surveillance and restrained all the time – but after the day she had had, she had hoped for some type of relief from having her head chewed off by Tony Stark. His anger-filled words still scalded her soul, and even though she felt she deserved to be yelled at for everything she had done to Pepper, it still hurt to be reminded that her current discomfort had come from someone who, at some point, she had dated and loved, albeit if only briefly. _

_How was it possible that someone who had been so close to her now hated her so much?_

_ Her thoughts were cut short when she heard the door to the room open once more. This time, when her gaze lifted from staring blankly at the table, she was shocked to see Nick Fury and Black Widow standing before her, both in at attention stance. Neither of them looked as if they wanted to be there in the first place, and in her personal experience since waking up, meeting with any of them had never resulted in hearing good news, but there was also something that felt different from all the other times she had encountered them before._

_ Luckily for her, she did not have to wait long to find out why._

_ "Escaping an international detention center," Fury began, a look of contempt marring his face. "Aggravated assault, wrongful imprisonment and murder of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Impersonation of a civilian. Financial fraud, slander and falsification of records. Illegal use of a stolen, highly advanced technological masking device. Breaking of a UN peace treaty by the burglary and the unsanctioned use of a decommissioned military ship. Kidnapping, torture, assault, battery and attempted murder of a minor across international waters… and that's without the crimes against Howard Stark, Tony Stark, James Rhodes and every civilian that got caught in the crossfire when you pretended to be your father to poison Stark Sr."_

_ Fury paused for a second, dumped a rather tall stack of folders on the table, and then eyed Natasha from the corner of his good eye. "I kinda lost track there, Agent Romanoff. How many years in prison are we talking about so far?"_

_ "About four life sentences. Give or take. Maybe even the death penalty. It depends on whether any of these charges are considered acts of treason or terrorism," Natasha replied._

_ "And on whether or not Ms. Stane here is tried by an international court or individually per affected nation and individuals."_

_ "That too," Natasha agreed._

_ Whitney's eyes shifted from staring at Fury to eyeing the very much unstable tower of overflowing folders filled with evidence against her. Her gaze slowly traveled up and down the mountain of papers a few times before she licked her lips and swallowed hard._

_ "When… when will I be sentenced?" her voice was barely a whisper._

_ "Don't you mean: when will you be __**tried**__?" Fury asked, his weight resting on his hands and his palms flat on the table that separated the blonde's sitting position from his standing one._

_ "The trial is pointless," Whitney replied. "I know what I did. I know the damage I've done."_

_ "I don't think you do, Ms. Stane," Fury stated while he shifted his position and opted to sit halfway on the edge of the table as if the situation developing was nothing more than a chat among old friends._

_ "I do. I know I hurt a lot of people. I know I killed at least one of them," the blonde retorted, not failing to recall leaving Agent Brand in the cell that was meant for her, to find her death._

_ "But you also tricked Iron Man and his group," Fury said, matter-of-factly. "You pulled a stunt so outstanding on possibly one of the smartest men on Earth. You changed his and Ms. Potts' lives in ways they cannot even imagine yet. And, had Ms. Potts' mother not shown up, you would've gotten away with it. Flawlessly. Almost… commendably so."_

_ "I'm not proud of it," Whitney narrowed her eyes. "I wish… I wish I could take it back! All of it!"_

_ "But you can't," Fury shrugged and stood up._

_ Whitney closed her eyes when she felt tears coming to her – more tears than what she had wanted to further shed after all of the ones she had already let fall. Why was Fury doing this to her? Why was this torture necessary? Why could they not just drag her back to her cell so she could rot for the rest of her days? Was that too much to ask? Was her willingness to face the music for her actions not enough for any of them?_

_ "I know I can't," she gulped. "I just want this to be over with."_

_ "Oh, it'll be over alright. There's no stopping it and you have no control whatsoever over that. But," Fury paused for an instant in which the blonde dared to once again open her eyes to stare at him._

_ "But?" Whitney shrugged._

_ "But, you __**can**__ change __**how**__ it ends, Ms. Stane."_

_ Whitney chuckled in disdain. "You mean I get to choose the lethal injection over the electric chair?"_

_ "As a matter of speaking, if you call: trial, the electric chair, and: joining S.H.I.E.L.D., the lethal injection."_

_ "What?" Whitney's head recoiled._

_ "What General Fury is trying to say," Natasha interjected, "is that, like it was the case for some of us, we believe your skills have been… misused, Ms. Stane. We could turn you over to whatever court wants to have you first, or we could… redirect your efforts to more productive tasks."_

_ "You… you-you want me to join S.H.I.E.L.D.?"_

_ "We want you to consider it for up to 24 hours," Fury replied nonchalantly and stood up from the table. "After that, I can only guarantee a one-way ticket to a hungry pack of attorneys ready to make you take the stand."_

_ "So," Whitney began, "what you're saying is that, instead of punishing me, you want me to become part of S.H.I.E.L.D.? That… that doesn't make any sense."_

_ "That's because that's not what we're saying," Fury clarified. "We have some intel that's disturbing, to say the least. We need someone who's crazy enough to do some missions for us to confirm that intel and maybe even get some more information. We need someone who has nothing to lose. You have no friends, no family… Well, no responsive family members, I should say. You're completely disposable. We could use that to our advantage and you could use an alternative to being burned at the stake. Unless, of course, you're still bitter about Stark choosing Miss Potts over you."_

_ Whitney furrowed her brows. "What does Tony have to do with it? Would I… would I have to hurt him if I join you?"_

_ "24 hours, Miss Stane," Fury replied with another lazy shrug and began walking towards the exit. "Let me know what you decide."_

_ "Wait," Whitney stood up and called Fury's name, but the man did not stop his trek despite her pleading words. "WAIT!"_

_ The door slamming shut was the only response she got from the head of S.H.I.E.L.D._

_ The blonde was at a loss as she sat back in her chair, her mind yelling at her to demand some sort of logical explanations to aid her in making sense of what Fury had just told her. Was Tony in some sort of deep and irreparable trouble with S.H.I.E.L.D.? Did they want to recruit her because she had almost taken down Team Iron Man? Was S.H.I.E.L.D. so bitter of Tony's vigilante life that they wanted her to finish the job she had started before? _

_Did they want her to kill Tony and die herself while doing so, just so that they took down two birds with one stone?_

_Was S.H.I.E.L.D. not supposed to be the good guys?_

_She shook her head lightly and, had her hands not still been bound, she would have rubbed her face in desperation. Nothing of this made any sense to her. The only thing she somewhat understood was that, in their own sneaky way, S.H.I.E.L.D. would spare her the trouble and woes of a long and painful trial if she worked for them for about, more than likely, the rest of her life. She doubted the agency would take anything less than all of it seeing as the punishment for her crimes would last at least that long. It only seemed fitting that her commitment to them lasted as long as she continued to breathe._

_Fighting her own demons, the blonde either did not realize or did not care that the other agent still remained inside the room with her, silently passing judgement on her features and inability to process what had just befallen her at the hands of a manipulating Fury. Unbeknownst to the potential new recruit, Natasha Romanoff currently saw herself in Whitney Stane. The similarity of their situations was uncanny. The irony of her coming here to witness another woman being asked to choose between a life in a four-walled prison and a glass-walled one was almost satirical. _

_Yet, it was not satirical enough to laugh._

"_Look, Miss Stane," Natasha's voice forced Whitney back to reality. "It's really not that complicated: just take the deal."_

"_But I," Whitney shook her head. "I can't just accept something to avoid the law. Not until I know that I won't be made to hurt people. Not until Fury promises me that he won't make me hurt Tony or Pepper! Or anyone else I know, for that matter!"_

"_Beggars can't be choosers, and there are no promises or guarantees in this business. But I can tell you that you won't hurt Tony or Pepper. Or at least not in the way you're thinking."_

"_But I will hurt others, right?"_

"_It's part of the job," Natasha shrugged. "Bottom line is that I know exactly what you're going through right now. What you're feeling. I know you regret what you did, and I know that, at some point, you thought that what you did to others was needed… maybe even justified."_

_Whitney avoided her pointed gaze and looked towards the door Fury had just walked out of, minutes ago. It was eerie how accurately this woman she barely knew was pinning down her current emotions and thoughts, leaving the blonde to wonder if it was personal experience that was speaking for the spy. When it became clear to Natasha that Whitney had nothing more to say in the matter, the redhead continued her speech._

"_Now you know that it wasn't justified at all. And you also know that nothing's gonna change what you did or make it better for you. People… they don't have to forgive you. Every now and then, we just have to forgive ourselves. And, believe me: sometimes, the only way to forgive yourself for hurting others is to help the ones you hurt, even if they don't want your help."_

_Fury's words replayed in Whitney's mind, along with Tony's and Pepper's she had heard earlier in the day. It did appear to her as if a fallout had taken place between the redhead and the inventor, so much so that Pepper was engaged to another man. And, while Tony strictly blamed her for him and Pepper not being together, Whitney knew that there was no way that her evil deeds were the single cause for the genius to abandon his pursuit of the ginger. _

_As much as it pained her, Whitney knew how much love the young billionaire had for the chatty girl. And while her actions had played an important part in separating them, if what Tony had told her about Pepper forgetting him was correct, there was simply no way that Tony would have just given up even after that. He had also stated that he could not allow someone else to hurt her the way she had. Perhaps there was someone out there who was after the redhead, or maybe there was someone else who was out to hurt Tony through harming the woman he admitted to love._

"_Are you saying...," Whitney's voice hesitated, but she finally locked eyes with Natasha, hoping against hope to gain some perspective on what she was considering signing up for, "Are you trying to tell me that Tony's life is in danger? Are you saying that Tony and Pepper need my help?"_

_Natasha nodded once. "More than they can ever imagine. Maybe even more than they will ever need anyone's help, in their entire lives."_

_That was all the information Whitney Stane had needed to know and hear._

_Twenty-four hours now seemed to be too long of a time to think about her final decision. _

_After listening to the Black Widow, it only took her one minute more to accept the offer and pay her debt to those she had wronged in the only way she could: by forfeiting control over her actions and handing herself to work for S.H.I.E.L.D._

_For the rest of her life._

xxxXXXxxx

_BUZZ_

The prolonged and annoying-sounding bell signaled the end of yet another failed simulation for Team A. The virtual world vanished. The lights immediately turned on, and Pepper found herself pinned between Iceman and the floor.

"Get OFF me!"

"Yeah, sure," Bobby stood up and took her with him even though she was clearly reluctant to receive his help. "You're welcome, by the way."

"You're welcome?" Pepper snatched her hand away from his. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"What the _hell_ was that?" Nick Fury yelled towards the duo as he approached them at a fast pace with Kurt, Natasha and Maya following behind, all shaking their heads with disappointed looks on their faces. "Are you intentionally _trying_ to fail these simulations?!"

"It's the best one so far," Bobby crossed his arms over his chest, his body language clearly depicting he was tired of being lectured on how awful the results of the VTR tasks were turning out to be for his team.

"The best one?" Fury's head recoiled in disbelief. "Because _two _out of three people made it out of this one, instead of no one?"

"We _didn't_ make it," Pepper said, her hands patting down her pants before she began taking off the layers of clothes she had on that made it difficult to move freely now that she was back to a normal environment. "That last avalanche killed us."

"No, it didn't."

"Yes, it did," Pepper argued. "The simulation stopped because all of the subjects died!"

"That's bullshit, Pepper!" Iceman pointed a finger at her. "The machine is only playing it safe. I covered you in ice to keep the avalanche from hurting you. We would've gotten out of it after a few minutes."

"To do what, exactly?" the redhead was fuming. "To realize we were out of our supplies, were lost in the Alps and couldn't keep going anymore?"

"_WE_ COULD'VE KEPT GOING! _THEY_ ARE THE ONES WHO DIED!"

"_You_ let us die, Drake!" Widow spat. "You wouldn't have made it past the mountain without supplies!"

"Then why are we going around mountains?!" Iceman's eyes rose to stare at the standing form of Tony Stark, watching the scene from the command center, high above the floor of the VTR, with no amusement whatsoever displaying on his face.

"Because that's the path that we need to follow!" Pepper replied.

"No," Bobby turned his face away from staring at Tony to watching the redhead, "We don't! If I didn't know any better, I'd said that your husband wants to kill you, Red! That's the most difficult path of all the four he traced!"

_"And that's why I'm sending you with her,"_ Tony's voice echoed from the speakers in the room. _"Because you're made of ice!"_

"And I did my job!" Bobby replied and again glared at the genius.

"How _exactly_ did you do your job?" Fury questioned.

"How did I not?" Bobby countered and pointed towards Tony. "You were all there, in the same meeting I was, when Stark broke down the missions for us, gave us our individual objectives and the paths. _My_ job is to make sure _she_," he then pointed at Pepper, "makes it to Latveria in one piece. She's the only one that matters to me in this mission and her safety is my assignment. Everyone else is disposable to me!"

"How the hell did you ever convince Professor X to let you be part of his team with that attitude?!" Widow was having none of the man's babble. She was tired of failing these simulations, over and over again, even as they neared the two-week mark of practicing them, just because of his persistent insubordination and short-sighted decisions. "There's a difference between making someone disposable for your convenience and someone becoming disposable by circumstance, Drake!"

"I agree," Bobby said. "And that avalanche made the three of you disposable."

"Dammit, Drake!" Fury snapped. "Everyone else… every other team, has been given challenges for their simulations, and they've all made it out of the struggle without losing anyone! My team survived an extended famine and the explosion of a safe house! Hill's team made it out of a shipwreck! And Stark's team took down a raging Hulk! All your team had to do was find a way around a roadblock!"

"And we did! We went around it!"

"You didn't consult with any of us," Pepper walked closer to the man and stood on her tiptoes to reach his now normal-looking face. "We didn't even know you took the decision to go around the path! There's a reason we have a chain-of-command!"

"This has to stop, Drake," Widow also closed the distance between her and Iceman. "We leave for Latveria in two weeks! _Two_ weeks! We won't have a button to bring us back to life if you decide to do this in the real world!"

"So, what?" Bobby shrugged. "If you don't keep up and don't accomplish your missions, that's all on you. _Your_ shouting caused the avalanche, anyway. This failure is on you."

"That's enough," Tony's stern voice made everyone snap their face in the direction of the entrance of the VTR. "I'm fucking tired of listening to the two of you fight!"

"Perhaps we should swap team members," Maya suggested, but her idea was instantly shot down by a shake of the younger Stark's head.

"It's too late to swap teams now. The other three work perfectly. It's just you," he pointed to Widow, "and Bobby," he eyed said man, "who need to shut the fuck up, get over whatever it is that you have against each other and start working well together."

"The hell, Stark?" Widow asked angrily, insulted beyond belief that the inventor was putting her in the same category group of _people that display irresponsible behavior in dire situations_,such as Robert Drake. "The only issue here is him! If you want this to work… if you want Pepper to make it to Latveria alive, then replace Drake with Parks."

"Arthur has his mission already. He's supposed to keep us all connected while we travel. No one else can do what Parks can do, and no one else can do this."

"Then our team should be of only four."

"We need him," Tony said with reluctance. "Latveria is fucking cold. And now that we know that Doom was the one who caused the blizzard in New York that killed all of those innocent people and sent me to the hospital for a week, we need someone who can withstand whatever cold weather conditions Doom uses against us."

"Then give us an easier route," Maya sighed, growing weary of listening to the same argument they always had after a failed virtual mission.

"I can't. This route is the one with the least chance of Doom monitoring. Anything else can result in him finding out about Pepper heading his way."

"Then have us take the _Earth Movers_ before we reach the last checkpoint," Widow suggested.

"I can't do that either," Tony retorted. "T'Challa is reframing them with vibranium. He'll barely have time to drop them off at the last checkpoint before he has to head to Latveria himself. And since you're the first team that will get to Latveria, I can't push anything back now."

"Which is why what _I_ did," Bobby pointed a finger to his chest, "is not wrong. It was heartless, yes. But not wrong."

"It was stupid," Widow countered.

"Says the person who not only managed to break her wrist and stab her leg, but also killed a teammate," Bobby rolled his eyes.

"That was an accident!"

"Yeah, that's my point," Bobby nodded. "I don't kill people on accident. I kill them when it's needed."

Tony sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose with his left fingers and closed his eyes. "Let's not do this, alright?"

"Do, what?" Drake snapped. "You know what I'm talking about! You've killed a lot people when you had to! You know exactly what I mean!"

"I never killed my friends," Tony deadpanned.

"Yet," Iceman replied. "But when the Mainframe goes online and Doom messes with your brain, I bet Pepper will be the first one to go."

"Bobby!" Pepper's eyes aimed towards his. "Shut it. Now."

"He doesn't know what that means," Widow mumbled.

"Widow, stand down," Fury said.

"But –"

"You're dismissed," Nick continued. "See me in my office in ten."

"But, sir –"

"Romanoff," Fury raised his voice. "Dismissed. Office. Now."

The spy held back a groan and instead gave her superior a curt nod before she turned around in place and headed towards the door. Fury waited until his agent was out of the training room before he too began walking in the direction of the exit, but not before he whispered in Tony's left ear as he passed him by.

"Get your team to get it together, Stark. The operation starts in two weeks, whether Team A is ready for it or not."

This time, it was Tony who waited for the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be out of earshot before he resignedly turned to face his team once again.

"Kurt, Maya and Pepper: take a break. We'll do this exercise again in about an hour or so. Be back here by then."

"What about me, Boss?" Bobby scoffed. "Am I gonna get detention, or do I just have to stand in the corner until then?"

Tony did not respond, but he also did not take his eyes off Iceman even when Pepper grabbed the inventor's hand for an instant and gave it a squeeze as she walked next to him. Briefly losing eye contact with the troublesome man, Tony surprised her when he quickly lifted her hand to his lips, closed his eyes, lovingly kissed the back of it and then gave his redhead a look of longing before he allowed enough time to guarantee that it was only he and Bobby in the room.

"You know," Bobby began once they were alone, his arms folded over his chest. "I cut that rope so that _you_ can have a chance to do that again with her when all of this is over," he lazily pointed with his chin towards Tony's hand and the door Pepper had used to leave, to indicate that he was referring to the genius' display of affection towards his wife.

"I know," Tony retorted, his eyes blank for a second before he continued, "but that won't happen, no matter how many ropes you cut."

Iceman wrinkled his brow, stared questioningly at Tony while the blue-eyed genius looked behind himself over his shoulder and towards the command center to make sure the microphone was muted, and then returned his gaze towards Drake.

"What do you mean that won't happen?"

Tony shrugged, almost in irreparable resignation, breathed heavily through his nose and then replied.

"What's gonna happen once we get to Doom's castle…" Tony gulped and lightly shook his head. "I… I'm not coming back."

Bobby's face further scrunched as he stared at Tony up and down, waiting for the other shoe to drop or for any minor indication that he was joking, but Tony's voice only turned that much more serious with every word that came out of his mouth.

"It's a one-way ticket for me, no matter how it's sliced. Doom won't let me come back… at least not alive," Tony scratched the top of his head with his right hand.

"And you… you're just gonna… like that? And…" Bobby sighed, paused for a second, and then just stared past Tony, towards the door. "Does-does she know?"

Tony's lack of immediate response and hung head were louder and clearer than any words he could have spoken to the man. Yet, the inventor still felt he had to make sure that his point hit home.

"I built the teams the way I did for a reason. Even if Pepper had her suit on, you're still the strongest one in your team," Tony raised his eyes. "And you have the worst mission of all, I know that. But I also _know_ you can make it. That's why I gave it to you. Not to Gene, not to Fury… not even Scott. _You_. All you're missing is making sure that Pepper trusts you, because… because if she doesn't, there's no fucking way she'll make it easy on you to protect her. Trust me: I know my girl."

Bobby silently eyed the inventor as he processed what the younger Stark had confided in him, easily understanding the implication of his words. His gaze then shifted to the emptiness of the VTR, his mind's eye replaying the virtual mission of moments ago and listing for him all the things he could have done differently – even if they were not as easy as just killing off half of his team – and he sighed.

"Fine," he relented. "And I guess, you'd rather her not known she'll be a widower when all of this is over?"

"Yeah," Tony replied, a sad look on his face as he stared at the pictures of his wife and his son inside his pocket watch before he snapped it shut. "I'll just make sure she thinks I cut my own rope."

"Well," Bobby sighed once more. "That mission is worse than mine. Good luck with that."

* * *

**A/N:** A lot of flashbacks here, but I think they're needed to understand the stuff that happened in the background throughout the other stories. Up to _The Fifth Year_, we only got to see, mostly, Tony and Pepper's progression. Now, we get to see how lovey-dovey they are and what happened behind the scenes with the other characters, all-in-one. It's like a two-for-one deal!

And now, as it has become custom, here's another **tidbit for one of my future stories**:

"Seriously, Pepper! Go! NOW!"

"He hacked the temple!" the redhead stated via the wireless earpiece of her phone. "I couldn't get a hold of any of you! I thought he got you both! I couldn't help you from there!"

"And what do you think you can do here?" Rhodey asked, as exasperated and worried as Tony felt while he simultaneously evaded and attacked Ghost. "Get your butt out of here, Pepper!"

"I can help!" she insisted and barely ducked out of the way of one of Ghost's rogue laser beam attacks. "I figured out how!"

"Pepper, I mean it!" Tony yelled immediately before he sped up his flight towards her position with the intention of getting her out of the zone himself if he so had to resort to that. "You're just gonna get hurt!"

"Just one second," she replied to him while she took out from her purse one of his latest inventions, and he finally realized what her plan was.

"Pepper! NO!"

His warning came too late. She had already hit the trigger. She had already flown backwards with the intensity of the blast. And while her plan would work and Ghost would be stopped, the price she had been left to pay was just too high.

Too high.

The loud scream coming from Iron Man uttering her name was the last thing she heard before everything went dark.


	8. Chapter 7

**Guest Review Responses**

**Toni: Nightcrawler is one of my favourite X-men! Enjoyed his scene with Pepper. 2 weeks until the battle?! Don't think they'll ever be ready :( Nor will I when this comes to an end :( **\- THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND REVIEW! *hugs so tightly it hurts* I don't think any of us will be ready for it. There's only one more chapter of preparation (besides this one), and it's off to Latveria with them.

**Anon: This fanfic is so good! Pl update. **– SO SORRRRRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING! I have no reason to earn your forgiveness, but I hope I do get it.

So, why did I take forever this time? Well, it was a combination of work, school, and I moved to another city. Quit school after finals in December (lesigh), and other less-than-pleasant things happened. BUT, here I am, ready to update and to hear what you guys have to say (and get yelled at too )

**A/N: **I totally forgot to add this disclaimer in the previous chapter: I do not endorse, favor or suggest any one religion (I respect the expression of any or none at all) nor do I want to harm any of the cities that got _kaboomed_ by Doom. I LOVE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE!

Well, except cockroaches… and Doom. I really don't like him right now. And you, my Faithful Readers, probably don't like me much either at the moment for the agonizing delay :(

BUT I STILL LOVE YOU ALL!

I'm gonna sound like the preview voice on real shows, but seeing as I took forever to update (and I'm terribly, terribly, terribly sorry for that!), here's a summary of the last chapter:

Previously, on _The Last Chronicle_:

_The state of the world after Doctor Doom's attack is verified: cities have been vaporized, others have been bombed into submission, and countless people are dead or out in the streets without food, water or shelter. A flashback is shown to the day that Pepper had the incident in the VTR (being forced to use Extremis to pass the test Nick Fury set for her) and of how that same night she was visited by Nightcrawler when she was reloading the security protocols back into the VTR system. Pepper is shocked to be called a mutant by Nightcrawler and it messes with her view of herself, her son and Tony. Back to present time, Pepper's team is in the VTR, completing a practice sequence in the Alps and they fail it (Widow accidentally stabs Maya, an avalanche hits them and renders Nightcrawler unconscious, Bobby cuts the rope to everyone else and only he and Pepper remain until another avalanche buries them and the simulation is over). Tony gets pissed off at this and tells Iceman that he needs to get his head in the game and protect Pepper with all his got, and also tells him that he knows he's not coming back alive from the mission. Iceman is surprised to find this out, and tells Tony that he will do what needs to be done to make sure Pepper makes it to Latveria and disables Doom's power core. Another flashback is shown where Pepper asks Tony what he thinks about them being labeled as mutants by the X-Men. Tony tells her that he does not care and she decides to let it go as well. A third flashback is shown of a moment between Howard and Trish, where Howard is afraid that Trish could have been hurt after punching Nick Fury in the face. The last flashback shows how Whitney Stane got recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. And, in the present time, Fury states that Team A will leave for Latveria in two weeks._

BTW, everyone, please welcome our new member of the Dark Side: Spicy Iron! In the time since I posted the last chapter, this Faithful Reader has READ AND REVIEWED every single chapter from _The Last Month_ up to the start of _The Fourth Year_,as of this post. It might be a while before we are all caught up and on the same page, but I am happy that we have such an awesome new person joining in our little group. Welcome!

Also! I created an Armored Adventures forum here in for anyone interested to post, vent, chill and share thoughts and ideas. You can find the link on my profile :D

I'VE MISSED YOU ALL!

* * *

**Chapter 7**

He felt a pair of warm, soft arms affectionately surround his shoulders from behind, followed by a light weight being placed on his left shoulder and a feather-like kiss on his cheek. He closed his eyes briefly, smiled, and pressed his palm against her joined hands on his chest. He then partly hung his head to place a quick kiss to one of her hands, before he then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, barely holding back the yawn she did not miss.

"I brought us some coffee. Want some right now?"

"Yes, please."

Tony felt his wife's body pull away from his, so he twirled around on the stool he sat on and faced her while she poured him a cup of the liquid he had not realized that he needed. His eyes traced her unmistakable womanly figure, the present state of affairs bringing to him memories of how her current actions had been common in the past when either one of them had worked themselves to exhaustion. He had stayed up all night like this, many times before, when he was high on creative juices, building and testing prototypes for his crazy ideas and inventions. And, every single time, she had been there with him; caring for him. Making sure she tended to his needs while he worked.

How could she have not, in fact? He could not picture it being any other way: she had become his strongest and most powerful inspiration.

She had, too, remained awake throughout the night as many times as he had, either caring for him, studying, or preparing for CEO duties. These hundreds of occasions did not even take into consideration the times they had both been hard at work during the course of the night to solve crimes – him adding new weapons to the suit while she did reconnaissance for the villain in question – just as they had done so when they had prepared for infiltrating the Maggia's kidnapping scheme taking place at _The Rotary_.

Had it really been that long since then?

Their high school years, when the trio of friends stayed up until the early morning to fight crime, seemed both as close as yesterday and forever ago for Tony. These simpler times were missed by the blue-eyed genius, who still had a difficult time accepting that those carefree days were long gone. It was not as if he had an issue with how his life had turned out to be: he had had a long time to adjust to the changing times, and he was happy with his marriage and the existence of his son. The real issue was that he wished – more so now than ever – that he could go back in time to do things slightly differently, if only to somehow guarantee they did not end up where they were right now.

His time with his redhead was very limited, utterly at the mercy of a gradually yet quickly decreasing countdown that would cease to exist when and if the call was made for his life to be taken away from him by Nick Fury or one of his lackeys. Never had Tony Stark considered that he would become a willful acceptant of such a tragic fate even though he had placed himself in deadlier situations when he was a younger Iron Man. Yet, here he was: two weeks away from sending his redhead to Latveria, and four weeks away from personally being at the forefront of the third world war. The consequences of fighting Doom could only be told by time, and time was ticking way too fast for him.

He had not realized that his mind had yet again wandered, until a cup of steaming coffee appeared before him. His eyes focused hazily on the mug while his fingers took from her soft hands the offering she had for him. After he took a sip of the perfectly prepared drink, and before he said another word, Pepper sat on the stool next to his, her own cup of coffee in hand, and spoke.

"I was thinking about my team's simulations, and about what we did wrong, and I think we should consider using the CC-457 on everyone."

"The molar implant communicators?"

"Yeah," she one-side shrugged, the almost distracted look in her eyes portraying the development of her thought process as she spoke. "They worked well during the Maggia stakeout, don't you think? Well, until Jules punched it out of my mouth, that is."

Her tongue moved briefly over the fake molar she had had implanted a few weeks after she had left Tony that year, replacing the one that had been knocked out by the Maggia member.

"I just think that half of our issues in the VTR happen because we sometimes can't communicate when we need to. We need to start talking more and reacting less."

"That's very true," Tony briefly paused to drink from his coffee. "They did work very well, but we used the Stark 1 satellite to keep them online, and we can't do that now without tipping off Doom. If we decide to use them, we first need to find another way to keep them working, even if it's just at a short-range."

"Mmhhh," Pepper sipped from her coffee, nodded in agreement, but did not say another word.

"We could try portable wireless transmitters," Tony began. "They would probably be limited, though, to anywhere from a few feet to maybe half a mile in radius."

"That should be enough, if their purpose is just to keep us talking amongst ourselves. How would we keep the transmitter powered?"

"An ARC reactor-based battery. Just like the one we use to power the _Stark Bike_," Tony turned on the stool again to face the table where he had been working, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and then began jotting down the ideas as they came to him. "Those babies power up the bikes for two years. They can make it a few weeks in the middle of Nowhere's Land."

"It should record the conversations in a way that Living Laser can transport the data back with him wherever he goes."

"Right," Tony nodded. "And, when close to certain checkpoints along the way, it should allow us to ping our geolocation back here."

"It's hard to tell what provisions the safe houses will have…" Pepper stood up.

"So we need to make a universal device that is compatible with ours…" Tony finished her thought.

"And make sure they have it available at the safe houses…" she stared at the paper he had in his hand by looking over his shoulder.

"Before your team leaves the island…"

"In two weeks."

Her verbal reminder that he would cease to see his wife in such a short period of time, made Tony stop writing for a moment; one moment too short for the ginger to even realize it had taken place. He covered up his continued hesitation by tapping the table with the end of the pen a few times, pretending that he was allowing his mind to sort through his ideas before plastering them on the paper below his hands.

"Am I distracting you?"

"No," his face partly turned in her direction and he faked a smile. "Of course not. You're my muse, babe."

"Your aura just spiked," she tilted her head to the side.

"Mmhhh," he returned his gaze to the paper. "I don't like it that you can see that."

"I don't either," she enveloped him again in an attempt to settle the sense of fear and uncertainty that was cascading out of him. "Sometimes, I like to be lied to."

"And sometimes, I _need_ to lie to you."

"Like when you told me you could fix the issue with Extremis so that I wouldn't worry about you?"

"Yup."

"Or when you pretended we hadn't been romantically involved to keep me safe?"

"That counts there, too, yes."

"Yeah, no. Nevermind," Pepper tightened her grip on him. "I take it back. I don't need you to lie to me."

"I won't, then."

"Then tell me what's bothering you right now."

"Losing you," he replied almost instantly before he turned in place, heard the redhead yelp in surprise when he grabbed her by her waist, and then sat her on the table. She instinctively closed her eyes when she felt his lips and nose caress her neck, one side after the other, only to then feel butterfly kisses being placed in random places on her face.

"You know that's my greatest fear," he whispered. "It's always been the same one: losing you, Pep."

She held his face in her hands and redirected his lips to land on hers. He reacted by pushing himself between her legs, which caused her to tightly wrap them around his waist. In response, his left hand pressed against the middle of her back to force her chest to puff out, and with his right hand he began unbuttoning her blouse. Once he got to the third button, his hand slid inside her upper garment and began sliding down the straps of her bra.

Pepper moaned into his mouth. He took advantage of her receptivity to his advances by undoing the remaining buttons on her blouse. He did not pull it down completely, but he did open it up enough to be able to kiss her cleavage. As he did so, the redhead frantically, yet expertly, pulled on his shirt from the back; her actions quickly left the inventor's muscled torso exposed when he paused briefly to let the clothing item be drawn over his head. Her hands then traveled to the front of his pants, and as she was beginning to unzip them and the genius avidly tasted her left breast, the door to the lab slid opened.

"Stark! We need you in the–"

Pepper instantly covered her front with her arms, turned her face away from the man standing at the door, and pressed the left side of her cheek against Tony's right shoulder. Tony further pressed her body against his, almost in tandem with her previous actions, in an attempt to somehow protect her from the shocked-looking eyes of their unexpected guest. Gene Khan, who had instantly turned around in place after his cut off sentence, exited the lab and closed the door behind him without a single word.

"Any chance I just hallucinated that Gene walked in on us?" the ginger asked, eyes closed and her face as red as her hair.

"Nope," Tony replied as he grabbed his shirt from the floor and haphazardly put it on.

"Oh, great," Pepper mumbled sarcastically while her trembling hands adjusted her bra.

"I'm sorry, Pep," he spoke softly as he slowly buttoned up her blouse for her. "You said this might happen, and I didn't listen."

"I didn't stop you," Pepper stole a quick glance at her husband's fallen face as she rested a hand on his cheek. "And he didn't knock."

"Why would he? It's a science lab."

"In that case, we didn't do anything wrong. We were doing science… biology, specifically," she winked at him when he looked up. He smirked at her and then kissed the inside of her wrist.

"Let me go see what he wants," he straightened her blouse.

"I'll keep double-checking the routes."

"OK. Be back as soon as I can," he said before he closed his eyes and kissed her while he grabbed her by the waist, lifted her off the table, and then slowly and carefully placed her feet back on the floor. He gave her waist a tender squeeze as he pulled away from her, all the while she zipped up and buttoned his pants, before he began walking towards the door. Pepper smiled at his back when she noticed his troubled aura had stabilized once more, and she felt shamelessly proud to have helped him relax, if only for the moment.

Tony exited the room to find Gene standing a few feet away from the entrance, his normal frown present on his face but, at the moment, it was more pronounced than usual.

"What?" Tony's tone was curt as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"We need you in the power room. The ARC-powered battery you installed is showing signs of malfunction."

"Bullshit," Tony uncrossed his arms, rolled his eyes, walked past Gene, and the Mandarin reluctantly followed the inventor. "My tech never fails. But I'll humor you guys."

xxxXXXxxx

_It only took Tony two days of non-stop work, after everyone received from Fury the grim news of how the world had faired after Doom's strike, for him to prepare the counterattack. He, as everyone else on the island, knew that time was of the essence, and that while getting to Latveria by normal means in normal times would take no more than a day of constant travel, given the current situation around the world, it would take them about two weeks to get to the border of the city of the despot ruler. That was, if and only if, no one stopped them, recognized them, and the means of travel he had learned were still operational remained as such; and, needless to say, if no one got lost or died on the way there, too._

_ He had, quite literally, not slept for two days straight since Fury had informed him and everyone else that the young billionaire was assigned the difficult task of preparing and leading the counteroffensive; an announcement that had taken place after Nick had finished showing everyone the extent of the damage around the world. That set of news had been a surprise for everyone in the room, especially after hearing the level of devastation the world had suffered under Doom's attack. For the untrained eye, it would have made more sense if Fury and his top S.H.I.E.L.D. agents called the shots, but given Tony's history with Victor von Doom, Doom's level of intelligence and technological advances, and the fact that Tony's plan during the Makluan invasion had yielded triumphant results, it was clear to the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. that, as much as he hated to admit it, Tony Stark was the best person for the job._

_Two days of constant work had left the inventor exhausted due to the inability to rely on the energy and stamina surge that he had been accustomed to having thanks to Extremis – a virus within him which continued to be limited and manipulated by Maya Hansen, per orders of the one-eyed General. Yet, despite the aches and fatigue the important task caused, the payoff was worth all of it, in his eyes. Having the opportunity to lead the operation meant he had more control over whether or not Fury had a chance to kill him if the need arose. It also meant that he was even more responsible for making sure the rescue of his son was as effective and efficient as it could be. As infinitesimal the odds were that Doom would not be able to mind control the inventor into becoming a vessel for enslaving the entire world, Tony felt there was still hope that he could come out of this alive. And hope, as he had learned over time, was such a powerful driving force in people that perhaps – just perhaps – he would live to see his son grow up._

_Even his beloved wife had unwillingly succumbed to slumber a couple of times while he had remained up and about, and she had fallen asleep either on a worktable in the lab or curled up in a chair in their shared quarters while he took the entire space in their small room to spread the tools he needed to chart their travel routes. Maps, laptops, electronic tablets, rulers, pencils, calculators, and a myriad of other devices, had littered the inventor's surroundings for forty-eight hours straight. But the results spoke for themselves: he had a plan – a very meticulous plan, and he was about to share it with everyone else._

_Unfortunately, when the time would come for him to begin explaining the details of his strategy, he would quickly realize that the two days of all work and no sleep would turn out to be a walk in the park compared to convincing the members of the resistance to buy into his plans._

xxxXXXxxx

It felt hotter than hell in here, and that was definitely not normal for him. He was mildly aware that these types of enclosures tended to become uncomfortably warm when too much energy was being created and expended; as much as he was also aware that sometimes the combination of EMF and other airwaves interfered with the proper usage of his rings and, in turn, ended up affecting him. He had not felt this way, however, since he had accompanied the inventor to the South Pole to rescue Pepper from the submarine. If he were honest with himself right about now, he had sincerely thought that he would never experience such discomfort once again.

And yet here he was.

Tony wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand as he climbed down the ladder from the topmost level of the electrical room that maintained the entire island's livability. While the infrastructure below Muir Island was remarkable, continual use and abuse of its resources without regular contact with the outside world, as well as the addition of the VTR, the replica of the Makluan Temple and the increase in the number of people living at the facility, had pushed the power supply to its limit. Fortunately for everyone in the building, the world's smartest and most capable electrical engineer and physicist had been present to quickly solve the powering issues, and he had done so by using one of his very own clean-power designs.

"Pepper had arranged for us to test powering the entire Stark Solutions building with one of these," Tony said aloud once his feet touched the floor and he turned to face Gene standing behind him. "We never got to do it, but I can guarantee you that it would've worked. I don't build second-rate inventions, Gene. There's nothing wrong with the device."

"Are you sure?" Gene inquired, his face showing how little he believed the inventor's words as he rubbed his aching forehead. "Fury said they were having trouble keeping the cafeteria's refrigerators on and also some of the medical devices in the infirmary."

Tony's head recoiled. "Fury? The fridges in the cafeteria? Medical devices? You his errand-boy now?"

"No. But it's better than you wasting everyone's time fooling around with Pepper in the lab instead of getting ready for fighting Doom," Gene's frown deepened.

"I'm not even gonna humor you with an actual response to that," Tony used the inside of his shirt to dry his face. "Besides, whatever Pepper and I do is our damn problem, anyway. Why didn't Fury come get me instead of you? "

"He said that you wouldn't even listen to him," Gene replied and closed his eyes when the room around him began spinning.

"Got that right," Tony dried his forehead with his forearm again, completely unaware of Gene's increasing discomfort. "Fuck, it's hot in here. Let's check the power cables for the cafeteria and the infirmary just in case, and then get the hell out of here."

Gene lazily nodded but did not verbally respond.

The genius maneuvered his way around the many cables, boxes and other electrical components in the room, and once he reached what he knew were the fuses and power supply monitors for the infirmary, he frowned.

"Everything looks fine to me," he shouted over the loud sounds of machinery functioning and towards Gene. "Did Fury say which medical devices were messing up?"

Tony once again wiped his entire face, this time with the bottom of his shirt, before he screamed over his shoulder as he slowly turned his head to face the other man.

"Hey, Gene! Didn't you hear me? Did Fury s– oh _shit_!"

He was by Gene's kneeling form just seconds before the Mandarin got on all fours; the only position in which he could somewhat hold his own weight. He was groaning loudly, breathing raggedly, and his knuckles were white at how hard he was clenching them. Tony crouched to get a better look at him, eyed him suspiciously and then spoke.

"Gene, what the hell?"

"Hurts…" he clawed at his chest, "breathe…"

Tony was taken aback. "What?"

"Ugh," Gene whimpered as his arms lost all power to sustain him, and had Tony, to both of their surprise, not just grabbed him by his shoulders and chest, the Mandarin would have hit the hard floor, face first.

"Gene? Gene?! Mandarin, what's wrong?"

The blue-eyed genius led Gene to lay on his back on the floor and then watched in confusion as Gene took sharp breaths. Tony searched around himself for blood, a weapon or some unknown assailant nearby; anything that could clue him in as to what was forcing the almighty Khan into a hopeless state. When he saw nothing was out of place near them, he stared back at Gene, whose hand was now placed over the necklace of rings under his shirt, and held the man by his chin to force Gene's blank stare towards his questioning eyes.

"Gene, what happened? Tell me! Point towards it! Gimme something!"

Gene eyed Tony with the desperation that came from someone who was seeing his life flash before his eyes, until he was finally able to make a retort.

"R-rings…"

xxxXXXxxx

_Tony had been the first one present at the meeting room, if only to make sure he had all the tools he needed to present his plans to the team. Not even his wife knew of the details of the counterattack, and he had done so on purpose because he had wanted to protect her from the backlash he knew would result from the information he was about to share with everyone else. He was not sure why Pepper always had to receive the bulk of the blame for his actions, even when she had no significant influence on his decisions, but it never failed to occur. Even when they had attended board meetings or when something had gone wrong with Stark Solutions, the fingers always pointed to her before they pointed to him. He hoped against hope that, if just for this one time, no one glared at her when he gave orders to his team._

_Sadly, he would be proven wrong about it, yet again._

_The members began coming inside the meeting room in waves, the first wave composed of Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, Gene, Whitney, Bobby, Gambit, Maya and Agent Hill. Tony was sitting at one end of the long rectangular table, signifying that he was in charge of the meeting. Pepper sat to his immediate left, and to Pepper's left sat Gene, Maya, Maria and Gambit. To Tony's immediate right sat Rhodey, and to Rhodey's right sat Happy, Whitney and Bobby._

_After this group was settled, the remaining members of the resistance and all accompanying family members entered, taking the remaining seats at the table or standing behind the seated members._

_Tony spared them all a glance to thank them for their presence, and as he was wrapping up the final details of the presentation he was going to use to explain his plan, a loud cackle coming from Happy Hogan made him stop. Everyone's eyes landed on the former jock as he wiped tears from his eyes. _

"_What's the deal, Happy?" Rhodey asked and the jock repeatedly slammed his palm on the table._

"_Dude, I just thought of the funniest joke ever!"_

"_A joke?" Gene frowned from his position across the table. "Right now?"_

"_Yeah!" Happy nodded and cleared his throat. "With Tony's entire dating history sitting here in the same room, it's just meant to be! So, listen: Tony Stark dates a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead–"_

"_Happy," Tony gritted his teeth. "Shut. It."_

"_And-and the redhead WINS the joke!" Happy replied almost instantly, and begrudgingly so, at seeing that his perfect joke had been interrupted before it had even actually started._

"_That's right, she did," Bobby made an obscene shake with his hips._

"_Mouths aren't the only body parts I can make disappear, Drake," Gene's warning and glare made Iceman melt in his tracks._

_Everyone else remained awkwardly silent as the uncomfortable moment dissipated between them while the rest of the team began to arrive. Within minutes, the other members of the resistance found themselves either sitting or standing around the room, all looking towards the inventor's stern face. Tony scanned the room to make sure everyone was present, and before he turned on the projector, he began the meeting by stating his first command._

"_We leave in three weeks, so I need everyone to listen up."_

xxxXXXxxx

"The rings?" Tony frowned. "What the fuck is wrong with your rings?"

The genius pulled the front of Gene's shirt and tried grabbing onto the necklace that held the agents of Makluan power, but a shock of electricity coming from them on contact forced Tony to retract and shake his hand.

"W-w-wav-v-ves…"

"Waves?" Tony repeated with a frown. "_What_ waves? You better not be playing here, Gene, because if you are, I swear I'll–"

Tony's words were cut short when he saw Gene's eyes roll to the back of his head and he ceased to breath.

"GENE!"

Tony shook the unconscious Mandarin as hard as he could before he stood up and ran towards the door. His hand landed on the handle, tried twisting it, but he soon discovered that it was locked.

"What the _fuck_?"

The doors to maintenance rooms, such as the one they were currently in, locked only from the outside to prevent anyone from hiding inside them. He was sure as hell that _he_ had not locked the door upon arrival, so it made no sense whatsoever that they were now trapped inside – unless _Gene_ had accidentally done the deed. He patted his pockets to see if he had brought his short-range radio with him, but he soon remembered that he had unclipped it from his jeans to allow it to charge.

_Son of a bitch!_

Tony desperately pulled and twisted on the handle a few more times, pounded on the door with his fists, and then kicked the door when he realized they were stuck. Hardly anyone ever came down to the main electrical room. With the doors and walls made out of thick and, sometimes, sound-proof materials, it was very unlikely that anyone would hear his screams. If he still had possessed his Extremis powers, he would have already called for help by using his mind to send a text. If he had had Extremis, he would have already pulled the handle off its track.

Unfortunately, he did not have Extremis activated – or at least not at its full capacity, so he would have to find another way out.

He turned around to worriedly stare at Gene, who was still lying on the floor, face up. He was glad to see that he was at least now sharply gasping for air every few seconds or so, so the Great Mandarin was yet to be taken down for the count. Tony stared left and right, and then held his head between his hands, willing his brain to work faster than it already was. When the last word Gene had uttered to him returned to his mind, Tony snapped his fingers and began canvassing the room, inch-by-inch.

_Where is it?_ Tony's desperation was obvious in his frantic search. _Where the fuck is it coming from?_

Whatever device was affecting Gene so greatly had to either: be big enough to be easily noticeable; or be small enough that it needed to be attached to something that allowed it to amplify its power. Opening the door was not possible for him at the moment, and even if he turned off the power in the entire building to catch someone's attention and force them to come down to the maintenance room, not only would this slow down rescue efforts: by then, it would be too late for Gene. The best chance Gene had right now was for Tony to find and destroy the disruptive device himself, and leaving the discovery of the culprit of this issue for later.

_Taking the rings off him won't help_,he ducked under a thick and wide electric pipe and surveyed its surroundings_._ _He's been exposed to their power for so long, and he's absorbed so much of their energy, that he's just a walking and talking, Makluan energy storage unit!_

Tony's last train of thought made him stop in his tracks. He stood up straight, looked towards Gene, and then huffed in surprise.

"But that _also_ makes him a giant-ass, Makluan energy interference source detecting machine!"

A worthy breakthrough, at last!

Tony crawled under the pipe once more, briefly checked on Gene's breathing status, and then, despite knowing that once the Mandarin was back to his normal self, he would never hear the end of what he was about to do, Tony lifted Gene from the floor and loaded him, face down, on his right shoulder.

"Alright, Gene," he readjusted his weight on his shoulder, "Tell me when it feels like you're dying."

The genius walked towards the side end of the large electrical room, Gene in tow, by either ducking or walking over the countless obstacles in his way, while simultaneously stealing glances at the weakened Mandarin alter ego and checking the structure for signs of the offending device. When the duo reached the South-end of the room and Tony noticed that Gene's breathing patterns were becoming more regular, the young billionaire snarled.

"Dammit! You're getting better! That doesn't help!"

In his haste to return to the area where the negative frequencies appeared to be the strongest, Tony failed to account for his extra mass and height while walking over a fuse box, causing Gene's head to accidentally, yet violently, hit a metal box that hung from above.

"Fuck! Sorry!" Tony ran his hand through Gene's hair to check for signs of injury, and when found that some blood was already pouring out, he flinched.

"_Shit!_ I mean: you're good! You're fine! It's not internal bleeding. Shake it off!"

The North-side of the maintenance room yielded the same results as its south: Gene was able to take in larger breaths, although not open his eyes or move freely just yet, which prompted Tony to race towards the East-side of the room, located at the far back of the structure, away from the front door – and right where his ARC-powered battery was placed.

"Well, I'll be…" Tony mumbled when he noticed Gene's breathing stop.

The inventor returned the Mandarin to the South-end of the room, sat him on the floor, rested his back against the wall to hold his own weight, and then gave his head injury one final look.

"I found it. Stay here. It'll be over soon."

Tony turned around, quickly made his way to the bottom of the ladder he had just climbed down from moments ago, and began a rapid trek back up towards the reactor core. He knew that the reactor, by itself, was not dangerous at all; not even for Gene Khan. It had been designed to be a source of clean, renewable energy: the releasing of harmful fumes and/or airwaves was _not_ part of the schematics. Or at least, not part of _his_ schematics.

_Where is it?_

Tony gave his invention a closer look, one that went beyond checking for correct usage and running basic diagnostics. But it was not until he forced his hand inside the narrow space between the reactor core and the wall, and that he ignored the scraping and scratching said feat had on his skin, that he found what he was looking for.

And it burned his hand on contact.

"Ugh!"

He dropped the small, barely two-inch in radius, and cylindrical-shaped device from his high-altitude position on the ladder. The disruptor barely made a noise when it hit the ground, but it did shatter in a dozen pieces upon contact with the concrete flooring, instantly ending the hell it had put Gene through with its augmented functionality.

Tony groaned when he stared at his bloodied and scratched right hand. Without Extremis, it would take weeks for it to heal properly and, while it did, it would slow down his typing, prepping and fighting efforts. He did not have weeks for it to heal – his team was leaving for Latveria about nine days after Pepper's did.

"Gene?" the billionaire yelled as he took his time climbing down the ladder, slowed down by the fact that he now only had one available hand to hold himself onto it. "Gene! Did you die?"

"No," Gene's response was barely audible over the electrical buzzing, but he was at least now walking on his own and headed towards where he had been standing before everything had headed south for him.

"Did it stop?" Tony asked once he reached the ground and faced a partly dazed, yet swiftly recovering, Gene Khan.

"Yes," he pressed his right palm against his chest and glared at the broken device by his feet. "What the hell was that?"

"I'm not sure," Tony crouched by the pieces and began randomly inspecting the remnants of the gimmick. "Didn't get a chance to analyze it. It burned the hell out of my hand when I touched it."

"What's it doing here, anyway? I've been in this room before. This had never happened until now."

"Beats me. I don't recall seeing this on the blueprints for this place," Tony shrugged before he stood up, his eyes fixed on the dispersed chunks. "I'll take the pieces back to the lab and–"

Gene's gaze lifted from the floor to briefly stare at a suddenly stunned-silent Tony Stark. He then followed the genius' line of sight towards the door, and when Gene returned his attention towards the scientist, Tony spoke once more, yet in a tone that became graver and graver by the word.

"You said Fury sent you to get me?"

"Yeah."

"Did he tell you to come with me, too?"

"Yes. He said I had to, to make sure you did your job," Gene replied, almost absentmindedly, but then his back straightened out when his mind began piecing together what Tony's brain had already started figuring out, seconds ago. Tony watched as Gene walked towards the door, and as soon as his hand landed on the doorknob, Tony spoke again.

"It's locked."

"Why?" Gene rattled the handle and then took a couple of steps away from the door. "Why is it locked?"

"You didn't lock it?"

"No, Stark!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Why would _I_ want to be _locked up_ with _you_ in a place like this?"

"_You_ wouldn't," Tony swallowed hard.

"But Fury would," Gene stated, and just seconds after Gene's last words were uttered, both men ran towards the door and voiced, in unison, one final word.

"Pepper!"

xxxXXXxxx

_The first image that would aid him in the unveiling of his plan came into view, and everyone's eyes shifted from staring at him to staring at the wall opposite to where he stood. The picture displayed a map of Europe with several markings of different colors all over it, but four particular dotted lines stood out from it: four dotted lines that originated from their current location on Muir Island and ended at Latveria's northwest borders._

_ "As you all know, the reports regarding transportation options aren't very promising," Tony began, "If this was any other day, we could have, at the very least, gotten on a boat or a ferry to get off the island, and then on a train or a plane once on the mainland, and be in Latveria by nightfall. But that's not how it is. Given the circumstances, and several other factors that I've already analyzed, considered and that I won't bore you with, we'll be traveling to Latveria using other means, in groups, and mostly on foot."_

_ "Groups?" Scott inquired and Tony nodded._

_ "When it comes to going against Doom, and in normal times, high-caliber weapons and an army yield the best chance of even making it to his borders. But we all know what happened to the last two armies that tried to walk up to Castle Doom. We can't afford to do what they did," Tony remained silent to allow everyone to recall the grim details of the soldiers and revenge-seeking civilians that had perished in the blink of an eye at the hands of Doctor Doom, while trying to stop the evil ruler._

_ "That was thousands of heavily-armed men and women, Tony," Rhodey said. "We're not even large enough to fill up this room."_

_ "I know," Tony nodded. "But it was also ten-thousand aliens with advanced technology and a fucking spaceship, and only ten of us."_

_ "So, we're doing strategy over numbers. Cool! What are the groups?" Bobby Drake shrugged and tried his best to ignore the awkward and almost disheartening silence that had befallen everyone present._

_ "I've split us into four groups of five people each," Tony changed the image on the projector to show a calendar that rotated days as he spoke, "Team A will leave at the end of this month, in exactly three weeks. Team B will leave four days after Team A leaves. Team C will leave three days after Team B leaves, and Team D will leave two days after Team C leaves."_

_ "Why the day difference?" Whitney asked._

_ "The paths I've charted for each team are all different, but they also all add up to two weeks of travel in total. Some paths are longer than others, and that's why we aren't all leaving at the same time. Team A has the longest and most isolated path. Team D has the shortest but also the most public one."_

_ "So, you're hoping that we'll all stick to the paths and that we all make it to the border, at around the same time?"_

_ "Yes," Tony nodded at Gene. "I know it sounds sketchy and full of if's, but taking separate routes will make it less likely for our presence to be detected until we reach the final rendezvous point. We'll have other people here at the island, supporting us on our way there, and we'll also have the Living Laser keeping tabs on us through power and phone lines."_

_ "So, Arthur's not going with us?" Pepper asked._

_ "No," Tony replied, already knowing what she was about to ask next._

_ "Then, how did you come up with the number twenty? Who's in each team?"_

_ Tony began his response by changing to a different slide to show the names of the first team as he read them aloud._

_ "Team A consists of Pepper, Maya, Bobby, Kurt and Natasha," he looked towards Professor Xavier and then at each of his people. "I know you X-Men are a tight-knit group and you're used to working together. But, in order to use the abilities of this resistance to its fullest, we're going to have to mix it up a little. I'm sure you'll be able to handle it," he nodded to Kurt and Bobby specifically before continuing. "Natasha will be the leader of the team, and Bobby will be second-in-command."_

_ Pepper could feel the eyes of everyone on her, all waiting for her initial reaction to the shocking news of who her team members were, and that she was not even in charge of the team she was placed in, despite having outranked them all in the tryouts at the VTR. The looks were heavy enough to make anyone uncomfortable, but she ignored them all. She then lifted her head, eyed Tony with a serene face, and then silently and firmly nodded once to show her acceptance of the role and his command._

_ For his part, Gene's eyes traveled from Pepper to Tony, and both men had yet another silent conversation. Gene's concern, Tony knew, sprouted from the fact that neither he nor the inventor were going to be part of the team that the redhead was a member of. And also that, on top of it all, Bobby Drake, the man that had been harassing the ginger ever since he had met her, was going to be one of the people Pepper would have to report to._

_ Gene broke eye contact with Tony only when he felt Pepper's hand on his right knee, under the table, and away from everyone's prying eyes. After she gave it an inconspicuous light squeeze, all the while her neutral face never faltered, the Mandarin finally decided to let the issue go for now._

_ "Alright," Tony said and changed to the next slide. "Now, let's talk about Team A's path."_

xxxXXXxxx

The discomfort caused by the bone-chilling cold and the humidity was what eventually woke her. She slowly opened her eyes, blinked them hard a few times to let them adjust to her surroundings, but when everything continued to be dark and silent around her – even after almost ten seconds of waiting – the redhead's body stiffened and she inwardly gasped.

_What… where… __**how**__…_

She remained still for an instant, trying to determine where she was by either touch or smell, but her efforts were for naught. She could not conclude where she was, and she could not remember where she had been before. All she could immediately discern was that, _wherever_ she was, felt cold, damp, dark and was quiet; and that she was on the floor of whatever _this_ was.

_My… head…_

A spike of pain hit her right temple when she sat up, so she rubbed the area fervently with one hand as her other hand traveled down her body. She felt relieved when she confirmed that she still had clothes on, and that all four limbs were in their rightful places. As she made the effort to stand up, however, a loud noise made her halt on the spot.

Light partially flooded the middle of the room when a door she had not been aware was there, opened up. She narrowed her eyes, looked away and used her right hand to minimize the impact the sudden light had on her corneas. When the spots dancing before her eyes started to fade away, Pepper stood up, tried to walk towards the light, removed her hand from her face, and was then punched in the nose.

"AAH!"

She fell to the floor with a thud and her hands flew to her bleeding nose. The pain was excruciating at first, but when she remembered that someone had just attacked her without notice, rhyme or reason, and that she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there, she quickly stood up, took on a defensive pose, ignored the fading pain on her already bleeding nasal septum, and then gasped when she saw the face of the person that had pounced her.

"Whitney?"

"Hi, Pepper," the blonde smirked before Madame Masque's mask covered her face. "I'm surprised that you lived through your first sentence."

Pepper frowned, took a step back when Whitney continued to walk towards her, and a feeling of déjà vu began creeping up in her.

"_First_ sentence?" Pepper shook her head at the familiar words and lowered her fists for a moment. "What the hell are you talking about, Whitney? Where are we? What are we doing here? And why the fuck did you punch me in the face, you bitch?"

"Still asking too many questions at once, I see," Whitney shook her head in fake disappointment. "And here I was hoping you'd shut your mouth, for once."

"What the–"

The blonde surprised the redhead by suddenly speeding towards her, pushing her down to the ground, and then sitting on her stomach so that Pepper could not move. Whitney then pressed her left hand around the redhead's neck, and used her right hand to keep Pepper's hands above her head by digging her fingernails into her wrists.

"Can't breathe, can you?" Whitney whispered in Pepper's right ear as she applied even more pressure on her windpipe. "Do you feel like your life is ending? Do you feel a burn in your lungs, a void in your chest? Good. That's how_ I_ felt when Tony stole my father from me. That's how _I_ felt when he chose_ you_ over _me_!"

_What? NO!_

Pepper's eyes widened in shock when she finally realized where and when she had heard Whitney utter those same words to her before. They were not new. They were not unique. And they were most certainly not ones she thought she would ever hear again.

_It can't be! How… is this… it's… It's happening! It's happening again!_

xxxXXXxxx

_"The Alps?" Natasha's tone was all but one of acceptance or credence. "You expect us to go through the Alps?"_

_ "Not exactly __**through **__them. There's a path that people who want to climb them take. Your path is pretty close to it," Tony replied._

_ "But… it's __**cold**__," Maya whined, not missing at all the subzero temperatures that were common in Latveria and that she had had to put up with for years._

_ "I don't care about the cold," Bobby shrugged. "Bring it on!"_

_ "And that's why," Tony pointed towards Iceman, "It's __**your**__ individual mission to make sure that Pepper makes it to Latveria, no matter what."_

_ "What?!" Happy shook his head. "You want Mr. Horny Hothead to watch Pepper's ass? I mean: back?"_

_ "Happy, please–" Pepper began, but was interrupted by Gene._

_ "Actually, Pepper, I'm with Happy on this one. Iceman is just one case of you-tying-your-shoes away from taking advantage of you."_

_ "HEY!" Bobby pointed towards Gene. "Red's ass is really nice and all, but I resent that statement: I don't really like doggy style."_

_ "Why not? It's the best one," Pepper snapped back and Tony had to hold back a smile at hearing the tone she had just used to address Iceman. He immediately recognized the nature of her voice as the one she had used, many times before, during heated and particularly difficult board meetings, especially when speaking to Mitch Richards, and he was curious as to what else his wife had in mind for a response._

_ Surprisingly so, Bobby appeared to be a tad uncomfortable with the sudden turn of events and with the way Pepper was staring at him at the moment. He opened his mouth a few times to attempt a snarky retort, but it was quickly evident for everyone that the self-proclaimed Sex God was at a loss for words._

_ "Oh, let me guess," Pepper tapped her chin with her index finger, stared towards the ceiling for an instant, and then returned her gaze towards the man. "Is it because that was your mom's favorite position? Or did you tend to drop the soap that much during gym class?"_

_ "I… I didn't take gym class," Bobby replied, crossed his arms over his chest and rested his back against the chair, all obvious indicators that he was trying to retreat from an argument that he had not foreseen he would start. So far, all of his mockery and flirting efforts towards the ginger had been thwarted by either Tony, Gene or any other __**male**__ contender that had been present during these situations. Although she was certainly grateful to them all for bearing that burden for her, Pepper had not once taken the ropes for defending herself in any obvious way, shape or form… until now._

_ "Oh, I know that, too," Pepper smirked and rapped her fingers on the table. "As I also know what happened on March 13, 2007. And unless you want everyone else to know about that, and about what happened afterwards, I suggest that the next time you try to boost your testosterone by the use of those low shots you take at my femininity, that you remember that: I'm a happily married woman; that my husband, who happens to have far more mature and desirable masculine qualities than you, by the way, is standing right there; and that we have a son. What kind of cold, heartless son of a bitch would put down an honest woman – an honest __**family**__, like that? Would a __**real**__ man, do that? Or is it that you just get a kick out of breaking the Mutant Code, if it comes down to harassing women?"_

_ The lowering of Bobby's gaze was his only reply. _

_Pepper continued watching him intently with a hard stare that many of the members present at the meeting had never seen on her before, and when Iceman continued to avoid her gaze and his mouth remained shut, Pepper's neutral face did not denote her internal happy dance at her victory._

_ "So," Tony changed the current slide when no one else dared to speak after Pepper's response. "Let's talk about Team B."_

xxxXXXxxx

No sooner than they reached the still locked door of the electrical room they were both trapped in, Gene grabbed Tony by his sleeve and teleported them inside the Makluan Temple replica. Both men looked left and right, frantically called the redhead's name, but they soon realized that she was nowhere to be found.

"Our quarters!" Tony grabbed Gene's shoulder before the duo vanished in a ball of light.

xxxXXXxxx

"N-n-no," Pepper choked out.

"Shut up!" Whitney spat before she pushed herself up from Pepper's body, but only to kick her hard in her left side with her steel-toed boot. Pepper felt the little air she had just gathered leave her again as spots flashed before her eyes. "I know that you two are together now! I know that he asked you to be with him! I KNOW that he loves you!"

Pepper both coughed and gasped for air as she slowly got on all fours. One of her hands flew to her burning neck and the other to where Whitney had just kicked her. The pain and confusion she was experiencing was almost crushing, and all too eerily familiar, but she was aware enough to barely dodge yet another kick from the blonde by rolling away from it on the cold floor. The evasive move left Pepper on her back, breathing harder than before, and her teary eyes glued to Whitney's leisure walk towards her.

"Don't deny it, Groupie. I saw you two together. I saw him pressing your hand to his chest when you hugged him from behind! I saw it when he kissed you… and I saw you kissing him back!"

Pepper shut her eyed hard, pursed her lips, breathed hard through her nostrils a few times, and then fisted her hands.

_No_, she bit on her tongue. _This isn't real. This __**can't**__ be real. I got out. I escaped. Tony and Gene, they saved me. I… I made it out! This is a dream. Just a dream. I have to wake up!_

Whitney's hands around her neck once more made Pepper's eyes snap open. This time, however, when the redhead tried to set herself free, Whitney responded by lifting her by the neck and slamming the back of her head against the metal floor.

_Metal?_ Pepper was hardly able to think straight. _Metal… floor?_

"You will die here, Pepper," Whitney slammed her head against the floor again. "You will die in this submarine."

xxxXXXxxx

"_Team B is composed of Cyclops, Gambit, Fury, Whitney and Rhodey. This is your path."_

_It took all of Rhodey's military and S.H.I.E.L.D. training not to roll his eyes or glare at Agent Stane, and to keep his eyes on the map Tony was now presenting them._

"_Nick will be the team leader. Scott will be second-in-command. Since Team B is composed of highly-tactical and combat-ready individuals, you'll act as a scouring group as well. Your path places you near the location of other allies, so your secondary mission is to gather more intel for us on your way to Latveria."_

"_So, in other words," Scott began, "Our disposal doesn't really affect the mission. But our aid makes things easier for everyone."_

"_Correct," Tony replied. "I hate to sound grim, but that's why I put all of you together instead of blending you with the other teams. You," Tony pointed towards Scott and then towards each person as he called them by name, "You already lead the X-Men on the battlefield. Fury tells S.H.I.E.L.D. agents what to do. Whitney is the lead of the spy team when Widow's not around. Gambit's stealth and people-skills are perfect for gathering intel. And Rhodey has an annoying habit of analyzing all possibilities before acting. You're the Dream Team of Tactics, I guess you can say."_

"_Annoying?" Rhodey arched a brow. "Saved your ass plenty of times."_

"_Didn't say I didn't appreciate it, Rhodey. But it still annoys the fuck out of me."_

"_You're welcome, __**jerk**__."_

"_Whatever, __**James**__," Tony smirked, shook his head in a joking matter, and then returned his attention to the screen. "Alright then. Team B: let's talk about the details of your path. I hope you like sleeping outside."_

xxxXXXxxx

"Not here," Gene said, his eyes closed, palms against the wall holding his body's weight, before Tony even opened the door to his and Pepper's room. "She's not here either."

"Are you sure?" Tony unlocked the door either way and rushed inside the small room to confirm what the Mandarin had just stated. The room was not only empty and silent, but also intact. There was not much space in the quarters to hold many objects, but even then, Pepper insisted on having the place tidied up.

"Where else can she be then?" Tony ran his hands down his face. "Where did she go?"

Gene clenched his eyes, rubbed his temples with his fingertips, and then shook his head to clear his thoughts.

"I'm still a little off," he began, "but it's starting to level out. I can sense she's still in the building, but I don't know where. I'm trying to find her. Just, give me a second."

As the genius waited for Gene's powers to balance out and aid them in their search, Tony's mind wandered off, trying to recall if anything had been out of place with his redhead before he had left. There had been no indication that she was planning on getting ahead of the timeframe of the mission, but it would not be unlike her to do what she thought was best. Then again, this was too elaborate to have been orchestrated by just one person and, as far as Tony could tell, Gene was not in on the plan. This left Tony with the bitter possibility that wherever Pepper currently was and whatever she was doing there, it was probably against her say and will.

"Found her," Gene's announcement was accompanied by a frown.

"Where is she?"

Gene's angry face only deepened before he replied.

"The VTR."

xxxXXXxxx

_"The next team, Team C, leaves three days after Fury's team does," Tony changed the slide. "Team C is composed of Agent Hill, who's gonna be the lead. Hawkeye, second-in-command. Happy, Beast and Jarvis."_

_ This time, Pepper was not able to hold back._

_ "Jarvis?" her eyes shifted from Tony's to Jarvis and then back towards her husband. "__**Jarvis**__, Jarvis?"_

_ "Yes, Pep," Tony nodded curtly. "Jarvis."_

_ "Tony…" Pepper shook her head in denial, now finally realizing who the twentieth person was. Her eyes then landed on Bambi's glistening ones, and she sighed. "But… but…"_

_ "Yeah, what gives with that, Tony?" Happy inquired. "I mean, I like J," Happy smiled at the man in question and gave him a thumbs-up, "But that's not right that you want to send him off to battle with us."_

_ As Happy was saying this, Tony stood up from his seat, smirking and slightly shaking his head. He walked over to where Maria Hill sat and reached down to her boot where she kept a short combat knife at the ready. Ignoring the agent's questioning glare, he straightened up and walked over to stand behind his family butler's sitting form, all the while the doubts regarding the older man's involvement continued._

_ "I agree," Rhodey stated. "I mean, yeah, I know that we're short-staffed and all, but everyone here is either… magic, I guess, or has been trained in combat. We can't just be throwing everyone here into the field."_

_ "Jarvis," Tony said in an even tone, and then immediately made a stabbing motion towards the back of the butler's right shoulder with Maria's knife. _

_ Faster than anyone expected, Jarvis reached back over his shoulder with his right hand, catching Tony's wrist in a firm grip and twisting it away from his body, causing Tony to grunt in pain and drop the knife, which Jarvis quickly caught with his left hand. He then released Tony's wrist and thrust his right elbow back, over the back of the chair, straight into Tony's solar plexus. As Tony bent over from the hit, Jarvis forcibly righted his arm from horizontal to vertical, catching the inventor in the face with a closed fist. _

_While Tony stumbled away from the butler, Jarvis flung the knife from his left hand directly towards the digital projection of the European map – without hesitation and without even taking the time to aim – leaving the blade to embed into the wall on the exact spot where Latveria was projected._

_ As Tony took in deep breaths and rubbed his face against the necessary but temporary pain he knew he would receive from the demonstration, eyes bulged and jaws dropped all around the room. Jarvis then stood up in place and held his hands behind his back. His face was stoic, yet his eyes had a small glint of amusement._

_ "Wing Commander: Edwin Jarvis, former member of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force."_

_ Jaws dropped even lower at that._

_ "What the… Well, __**shit**__!" _

_James Rhodes had a new idol in life._

xxxXXXxxx

"What is she– Whoa!" Tony's question was interrupted when he bumped into what he believed would be the doors to the command room of the VTR, but was instead the standing and confused form of Bobby Drake. The genius took a step back, eyed Gene with the same expression of perplexity the man was staring back at him, and then they both narrowed their eyes at the X-Man before them.

"Move," Gene's simple order earned him a simple response from Drake.

"No."

"No?" Tony scoffed. "What do you mean: no? Pepper's in there. Get out of my fucking way, Bobby."

"No."

"No?" Gene asked.

"Did I stutter?" Bobby replied.

Before anything else was said, Tony silently placed his left hand on Gene's right shoulder, and the latter teleported them both inside.

"Dammit," Bobby mumbled as he turned around in place and unlocked the doors. "I forgot he can do that!"

Not half a second after Bobby made his way inside the command room of the VTR, he was slammed against the entrance doors by a fuming Tony Stark. His still bloodied-and-in-pain right hand was pressed around his neck, and his left index finger pointed behind him and towards the computer dashboard.

"_Why_ is the control room a block of ice?! Where. _Is_. Pepper?"

Behind Tony, Bobby could see that the lack of patience that was currently bubbling out of the inventor was also scarce within a glowing Gene Khan. Iceman's eyes traveled all around the room that he had practically converted to an ice cave with his powers, and when he returned his attention to a furious billionaire, he simply shrugged.

"Technically, it's an _igloo_."

"DRAKE!"

"OK! FINE!" Iceman scoffed. "I don't see what the commotion is, anyway. I'm just following orders."

"Orders?" Tony shoved Bobby's back against the entrance doors before he finally released the X-Man and took a step back. "Whose orders? What is going on?"

Bobby's head recoiled in surprise as he straightened out his clothes, groaned when he saw that Tony had left what appeared to be a blood stain on his favorite shirt, and then walked over towards the frozen solid control panels, leaving his back towards the large control console. He briefly stared at Tony up and down, waited for a second to see if Tony would come to his senses, and when only a mix of confusion and rising anger continued to be the only reaction he was getting out of the genius, Bobby scrunched his face.

"What do you mean _whose_? Yours and Fury's? You and Fury agreed to test Pepper against one of the possible attacks Doom can use on her. Did you forget that?"

"What?" Tony shook his head left to right in a rapid motion. "What the _fuck_ are you talking about?"

"Dude, really? YOU_ wrote_ the memo!"

"What memo?" Tony closed the distance between him and Drake. "I didn't write any memo!"

"Are you sure?" Gene asked the inventor after reading through Iceman's aura that, as far as the X-Man was concerned, he was being honest and truthful with his reasoning and response.

"What do you mean: 'are you sure'?" Tony stated in a mocking tone of Gene's voice. "Did the Makluan energy disruptor cut oxygen supply to your brain for too long? OF COURSE I'M SURE!"

"Really?" Iceman said incredulously. "I mean, the task is in line with what you told us may happen in Latveria. Especially to Pepper, since she can't be mind-controlled by Doom's machine. Are you sure you didn't just forget you did?"

"I _don't_ forget _anything _related to Pepper," Tony deadpanned, highly insulted by Bobby's implication, and then his head snapped towards Gene. "Unless," Tony slowly walked towards his _evil_ counterpart, eyes narrowed, "Someone _made me_ forget. Again."

"Calm down _now_, Stark," Gene retorted, not one sign of culpability reflecting from his posture. "I haven't messed with your mind since Pepper asked me to make you forget about you two being together."

"Really?" Tony was not buying what Gene was selling.

"Really," Gene glared at Tony. "I can tell that Drake is telling the truth, anyway. But you? You don't sound so sure. You probably _did _write that memo and just forgot you did."

"I forgot? Really, Gene? You, of all people, should know that I wouldn't just _mysteriously overlook_ anything important I say or do. Most especially, _anything_ that ties in to this mission!"

Gene's signature frown and the crossing of his arms over his chest displayed that he was not yet convinced of Tony's innocence in the matter – and that he was starting to suspect that his little incident of just now in the electrical room could have been orchestrated by the genius himself, in an attempt to test a new invention of his that would aid him in keeping Mandarin under control if needed.

Gene would not put this past him, either. Tony had been targeting everyone's weaknesses as of late, exploiting and analyzing them, claiming that it all was part of preventative training efforts – and Gene had declined being part of it all. The thought of being one of Tony Stark's lab rats against his will made Gene's blood boil.

"Save it, Stark. And drop the fucking act."

"What act, Gene?" Tony spat, upset and shocked that the situation had been turned around on him. "I didn't write any memo about Pepper! I would remember if I did!"

"Maybe you would've remembered,_ if_ you had been paying attention to what you write and say, instead of fooling around with Pepper in the lab when you're supposed to be working!"

Tony's fists and jaw clenched, and his tone of voice turned condescending and cold as ice with his response.

"You mean _instead_ of me being a husband to my wife? Is that something you don't approve of now, Gene?"

"Wait a second! Were they _doing it_ in the lab? Like, on one of the tables or against the walls?" Bobby chirped in, honestly curious about the adult-rated action he had apparently missed. "Oh! I bet it was a good fuck, too! I bet Red was _very_ cooperative and bendy!"

The incredulous looks Iceman earned with his response did not faze him, but they did inform him that he had about half the time it took for smell to travel half a foot to further elaborate on his words.

"What?" he shrugged. "I'm just saying! I'd be surprised if they _weren't_ doing it _way_ too often and _way_ too hard since we all got here. Or right after they thought their kid died."

"What?" Tony blinked several times, his quarrel with Gene suddenly forgotten, the oddness of the comment temporarily throwing him off track. "We didn't… but… and... how would you even… and… _what_?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Dude, it's not news to me, alright? I'm a professional, remember? I'm a psychologist, OK?"

"No, you're _not_!" Gene spat.

"Well, I COULD be one, alright? And it's a _FACT_ of human cognitive and behavioral psychology that when two people that share a strong bond also share a strong loss, i.e. their kid being in Doom Land right now, these people will resort to non-stop sex to release the pent up frustration and remorse," he then turned to Tony. "And, more often than not, not planned at all, if I may add. Perhaps the _best_ sex you and Red have ever had, huh?"

"I _really_ don't want you thinking about my wife like that."

"Too late," Bobby deadpanned without remorse and then turned to Gene when a previous conversation related to the subject at hand returned to his mind.

"Hey! Was it doggy-style?"

xxxXXXxxx

_"Finally," Tony began. "The last team to leave the island is Team D. And as you can already tell, Team D is made up of Jean Grey, Bruce Banner, Rogue, Gene and me. I'm first-in-command, and Jean Grey is second."_

_ "Really?" Jean looked around and pointed towards herself, "I am?"_

_ "Really," Tony held back an amused smile._

_ "Why?" the redheaded mind-reader asked._

_ "As we all know, when it comes to multiple abilities and pure strength, Gene and Hulk came out on top during the VTR trials. Bruce only gets stronger the madder he is. And Gene has the ability to use AND mix-and-match powers that the rest of us only have via enhancements or in limited supply. Now that Hulk has evolved from its gray form to a combination of it and its green counterpart, Bruce has more control over the Hulk and can make even better decisions on how to use his power, as long as he's not blindly mad. Gene and his rings can do a boatload of things: attack with ice, fire and electric blasts; allow for mind control, teleportation, and sending people to The Void; the ability to see and control energy along all electromagnetic spectrums; use impact, vortex and disintegration beams; and matter-rearrangement abilities that allow him to control reality. If Doom wasn't Doom, and if he didn't have the upper-hand with his version of the Mainframe, we could just send the two of them and be done with this."_

_ "But," Jean began, "If they, or even you, Tony, were to go out of control under Doom's mind regulator, then __**we**__'re all in trouble."_

_ "Right," Tony nodded. "That's why you and Rogue are with us. If anything gets out of hand, Rogue can suck the life out of us. And you can force Rogue to take a nap if the energy intake is too much for her."_

_ "Checks and balances," Fury said with a hint of astonishment. "That's part of how you set up the teams, wasn't it? You made sure that the abilities of the members of each team cancel each other out. Even if we all lose it, and Doom takes control over all of us, we'll probably just attack each other until we all take each other out."_

_ "And Pepper gets to do her job while we kick the shit out of each other," Rhodey said, also in disbelief at how intricate Tony's planning had been._

_ "A scientist, a strategist, a stealth agent, a strength-filled individual…" Widow listed the profiles of the members with her fingers, "Every team has one of these…"_

_ "What's the fifth one?" Whitney asked._

_ "Voice of reason," Tony replied. "Nightcrawler, Rhodey, Jarvis and Jean Grey: they're Voice of Reason."_

xxxXXXxxx

"NO!"

Pepper's sudden cry of defiance surprised Madame Masque, but not as much as the ginger's next move did. She lifted her legs, arched her back, gained momentum, wrapped her legs around Whitney's upper body, and then used her knees to force Whitney to release her. Pepper's left knee dug into Whitney's back while her right leg aimed to her face and neck, causing the blonde to diminish the grip she had on Pepper's neck. As soon as the redhead felt the slight hesitation on Whitney's part, the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was pushed off Pepper, thrown over the ginger's head, and then landed on her back, a few feet away from where Pepper had laid on the floor.

"I don't know what's going on, but I'm not holding back, Whitney. Stay away from me or you'll regret it," Pepper warned the blonde as she stood up from the ground, her gasps helping her regain some of her balance and strength.

Whitney slowly stood up as well, appeared to not be deterred by the redhead's words and actions, rested her right fist on her waist and then chuckled.

"You can't hurt me, and Tony's not coming to save you," the blonde spat. "No one knows you're here. He left you at the Temple. He didn't care that you wanted him to stay!"

Before Pepper could reply, Whitney once again dashed towards her, but history did not repeat itself this time around. Pepper sidestepped enough to stop Whitney's incoming kick in its tracks by grabbing her leg, half twirled with it in her hands, and then sent the blonde flying off and away from her. Pepper's victory was short-lived, however, as thanks to the abilities she gathered from the mask, Whitney was able to better maneuver the landing of the throw.

Pepper took a step back, still recovering from the lack of oxygen by the taking of deep breaths. Despite the screaming pain in her ribs, nose and the back of her head, she readied herself for another punch or a kick. Unfortunately, Whitney's next order of offensiveness was neither of those. She instead grabbed a gun, aimed it towards Pepper, and took a direct shot.

Pepper had expected, and had somewhat mentally and physically prepared for, a laser beam or a bullet to come out of the firearm. Instead, she was surprised to realize that it had been just an extremely bright light that had been targeted her way and nothing more. The unforeseen move, however, had yielded the anticipated results: Pepper was blind as a bat and stumbled her way to the floor.

_Dammit!_ The redhead patted all around her. _I'm done! I'm done! I can't see!_

In her desperation, and while trying to gauge Whitney's current position by the sound of her heels drumming against the metal floor beneath them, Pepper took hasty and uncoordinated steps to stand up from the ground and to walk backwards, all the while her eyes began fluctuating between showing her pitch darkness and random, bright spots.

"It all ends here, Pepper," Whitney said before she hit the back of Pepper's legs in a swiping motion that sent the redhead to her back once more.

"Ugh!" the air was expelled from Pepper's lungs for a third time.

"To be honest with you, I really thought you'd last longer. Then again, I only hoped for that so that I could have more fun with you before I let you die. I will tell Tony how you desperately begged for your life. I'll tell him how you waited for his help, until your last breath, and he never came."

"No," Pepper blinked several times when she saw that the blurry shadows her eyes were processing were now taking some type of a shape. "I won't… I-I won't d-d-die here!"

Whitney mockingly chuckled when Pepper slowly and clumsily rolled on the ground and tried to get on all fours again to stand up. The blonde did not hesitate to hit the redhead on the same sore spot she had been kicked by her, just moments ago, sending Pepper to practically kiss the ground beneath her. The pain that ran through her muscles and nerves made Pepper choke back tears, but she refused to ask for mercy or for Whitney to stop. She knew this was exactly what the deranged woman wanted to hear from her. She would not give her the pleasure of knowing that she had gotten Pepper Potts to beg for her life.

As she tried to get up again and again, Whitney repeated her kicking actions over and over, until Pepper's body refused to move anymore. The redhead ended up on her side, tears streaming down her temple and nose, dreading to breathe in or out as either attempt left her with screaming pain shooting up and down her back and chest. Clear vision was finally returning to her, but she doubted it would help any if she could not even force herself to blink.

"Say goodbye, Pet. Your time has come."

And it would have, had Pepper not seen a shiny object on her left hand that made her realize where and when she was.

xxxXXXxxx

"A recreation of the submarine incident? A RECREATION OF THE SUBMARINE INCIDENT?!"

"Yes," Bobby furrowed his brow, not at all understanding why Tony was practically pulling out his hair. "I thought it was odd, too, but this is what it said. See?"

Tony snatched the paper from Bobby's hands, skimmed through the contents of the letter (with his perfect signature included), and then shook his head before he crumpled the memo into a ball and threw it towards Gene to catch.

"I didn't order any of this," he said firmly and walked over to the frozen console, his hands hovering over the controls he knew would stop the sequence in a flash. "I didn't do this. Stop the simulation. Unfreeze this shit so that I can stop it right now!"

"Uhm…"

"Uhm-_what_?" Tony's head snapped towards his left to stare at Iceman scratching his right cheek.

"I… I kinda can't…"

"What?"

"I mean: I _can_. I could. But, I can only thaw the ice and it's gonna fuck up all the circuitry in here. Besides, _I _wasn't supposed to remove the ice from the console when the sequence was done. That's Gene's job. I'm just supposed to keep it cold so that it doesn't liquefy."

"What?" Mandarin rushed to where the other two men were standing. "_My_ job?"

"You got a memo, too, didn't you?"

It was Tony's turn to try to melt Gene's flesh by just using his eyes.

"I…" Gene's eyes shifted left and right. "No! I… I didn't. Fury only told me to ask Tony to check on the power source. He didn't say anything about a test on Pepper. I didn't know this was even taking place or that I was supposed to be part of it. This is just insane!"

"Huh," Bobby slowly nodded up and down as he processed the information just given to him. "Well, this is awkward. You didn't order this," he pointed at Tony. "You didn't get a memo," he pointed towards Gene, "And I'm the idiot who got conned into putting Pepper into a bullshit and dangerous simulation with Whitney, when my job is to keep her safe. Yeah, sure. Why not?"

"Whitney?" both Tony and Gene spat. "Whitney's there with her?"

"Yeah," Bobby's right index finger extended a thin spear of ice that reached the manual power button of one of the monitors in the room and pushed it on. "See? That's not a Whitney simulation. That's her."

"That bitch," Tony mumbled, anger seething out of him at the familiarity of the situation, but before he tore apart the entire system to stop the sequence, he and the other two men were shocked by what suddenly happened on screen.

xxxXXXxxx

_This is not real,_ Pepper thought with renewed spirits as her eyes fixated on her engagement and wedding rings on her left hand – the single clue she had needed to focus her mind. _This is over. I'm not in the submarine anymore. I made it out. I'm in Muir Island now._

"With Tony," she managed to say, her eyes looking up to stare at Madame Masque, "Doom has my son. And I'm _tired_ of your games!"

Behind the mask, Whitney's eyes narrowed at Pepper's words. It appeared as if Pepper had finally come to her senses and had figured out what was truly happening around her.

The real fight was about to start. And Whitney was more than prepared for it.

Or so she had thought.

"So, what if you're tired of my games? What _can _you do about it?" Whitney challenged. "Even with Extremis, I still outranked you in the trials using my mask. You _can't _take me on, Pet! You cannot beat me like this!"

"You're right," Pepper slowly rose from the ground, her recently fully-evolved Extremis at last operating at lightning speeds to patch up the injuries received by the blonde, now that the effects of the serum Whitney had used on Pepper to delay her innate healing abilities had ran out. Once fully standing, and feet away from the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Pepper smirked with her next reply.

"_I_ can't beat you. But I know of someone who _can_."

Leaving no time for Whitney to process her words or actions, Pepper raised her arms, crossed them in front of face, tapped her wrists together twice in a fast motion, and then stretched her arms to her sides. The explosion that followed her physical command was the only thing that Whitney was able to make sense of for a second too long.

xxxXXXxxx

"Nevermind," Tony said when he saw the motion of Pepper's arms, a small smile on his face. "Let Pepper finish the job."

"What?" Gene grabbed Tony by his collar. "Are you crazy? This is cruel and pointless! Stop it now or I'll destroy the damned machine myself!"

"Don't!" Tony replied. "Whitney has this coming. Let Pepper show her why she shouldn't have pulled this stunt."

"What do you mean?" Bobby pointed to the screen, now realizing this issue was greater than the sum of its parts. "Pepper doesn't stand a chance against Madame Masque – Extremis or not!"

"I know," Tony's eyes landed on the screen. "But Rescue does."

xxxXXXxxx

The hidden compartment in the wall behind Pepper slid open with a bang. The suit of armor unfolded itself from its backpack form as it flew towards the redhead's back, easily molding to her body on contact, as if it were nothing more than a second skin. The moment the armor locked together around Pepper's body, only for the ginger to then disappear from view thanks to its stealth mode, was when Whitney knew she was in for a rough ride.

Rescue reappeared behind Whitney and kicked her hard in the back. The force of Pepper's attack was so great that Madame Masque hovered away from the armored heroine, but only for her flying trajectory to be once again painfully redirected when Rescue appeared in front of the blonde to upper cut her square in the stomach, sending the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. shooting straight up. Pepper did not allow Madame Masque to get too far up, however, and grabbed the agent by her left ankle. After securing a strong grip on her, Pepper rapidly twirled several times, Whitney in tow, and then sent the woman to smash against the back wall of the submarine, denting it with Madame Masque's body shape.

All in all, the complex attack took no more than a second, and when Whitney's body slid to the ground and her face hit the floor, the safety features that were embedded into the VTR kicked in.

_"Sequence aborted. User: Madame Masque is in distress."_

"The hell she is!" Pepper snarled, not halting her attacks on her despite the lights coming on and the simulation ending. She picked up Whitney from the floor, held her up by her neck and then ascended until they were both above the ground, and then began crushing her windpipe with enough force to hurt her, but not kill her. Whitney was not down for the count, however, and she responded to Pepper's action by attaching a grenade to Pepper's suit, which exploded almost instantly, sending both Rescue and Whitney towards the floor.

The impact had been equally distributed amongst the two women, but Pepper was able to recover faster than Whitney did thanks to Extremis and the suit. In a flash, Pepper was up and about again. This time, Rescue pinned down Madame Masque against the ground, held her hands above her head with each of hers, and pressed her armored knees against Whitney's stomach and chest, restricting the inflow of air in the same manner she had experienced herself a little while ago.

"I knew you'd never change!" Rescue screamed, "I knew you'd never let it go!"

"Pepper, stop!" Whitney said between gasps of air. "It's not what it seems!"

"Lies!" Pepper snatched Whitney's mask from her face and threw it away from them. "All you tell are lies!"

"P-P-Pepper…" the blonde could hardly speak. "Not… not me…"

"Oh, this isn't you?" Pepper all but growled. "Who are you gonna blame for it? Who are you gonna try to cheat now?"

"Please…"

"Please, _nothing_," Pepper replied. "I forgave you, Whitney! After everything you did to me and Tony, I_ forgave_ you! I advocated for you with Gene and S.H.I.E.L.D., and _this_ is the thanks I get? This is what you do me the second I turn my back?!"

"No… Training…"

Pepper scoffed. "Training? This was just training? Sure didn't feel like training when you were beating me up!"

The redhead's anger-filled words were followed by the quick charge of the unibeam on Rescue's chest, all of the suit's energy swiftly transmitting to the strongest weapon in its arsenal. Whitney's eyes widened when it became obvious what Pepper's plan for her was: when the bright light on the small, yet fully charged repulsor aimed at her face.

Desperate and scared, she began to thrash.

"Pepper, no! Stop this! Fury sent me here!"

"Bullshit! I'm not buying into your lies!"

"He did! He did! PLEASE! Pepper, stop!"

"You didn't stop when you were hurting me!"

"I was doing my job, Pepper … Just my job! Please, stop… Please, I beg you… Don't kill, please!"

Unexpectedly, against all odds and after Whitney's words left her lips, Pepper gasped.

The redhead pushed herself away from Whitney, as if the blonde had suddenly scathed her armor, sat on the floor, and began hyperventilating. She barely recognized the sound of the door to the VTR opening, and she practically did not catch Tony grabbing her head in her hands and calling her name. All the ginger could think about right now was how close she had come to pulling the trigger on Whitney – how close she had come to murdering an ally and former friend.

Just as Tony had murdered Rhona Erwin, long ago, in cold blood, in a fit of rage.

"Pepper, look at me," she heard Tony whisper to her. "Come on, baby, look at me. Focus, Pep. Focus."

Rescue's faceplate retracted and her eyes locked with his. She was breathing hard, though not of exhaustion; and she was shaking, though not in anger. Her eyes were glistening. Her lips were dry. And the feeling of dread that was pooling in her chest at realizing what she had almost _willfully_ done, pushed her to tumble into his embrace.

Tony glared at the recovering blonde that was being tended to by Iceman while Gene eyed the woman up and down with contempt.

"You're gonna be fine," Gene told her after he checked her for major injuries using the electromagnetic spectrum ability of the rings. "Bruised as heck. But fine."

"Sorry, Whitney," Iceman said. "I thought they all knew."

"They didn't?" Whitney questioned, her hand rubbing the soreness on her neck.

"No. Gene didn't get the memo. And Tony didn't write it."

"But," Whitney licked her lips, "But, Fury said that–"

"Do you really expect me to believe that you weren't the one to set this up, Whitney?" Tony spat, a silent and shocked Pepper still clinging to him. "How stupid do you think I am?"

"You think _I'm _stupid enough go against Pepper in her suit?" Whitney whined. "She wasn't supposed to use it or have it around!"

"And you're not supposed to kidnap people and leave them for dead in the South Pole. And yet…"

"Tony," Whitney shook her head. "I don't know what happened here. All I know is that Fury told me to run a simulation of what happened in the submarine with Pepper. He said… he said that we all needed to be ready to relive our worst times. He said that Doom can and will do that to us. He said you agreed. I… I relived the death of my father… and got over it. Pepper was supposed to get over her time in the submarine. And she did. That's all I know."

"And you _agreed_ to this?" Gene asked.

"The memo had Tony's signature on it, and the simulation was scheduled on the VTR's logs under Tony's username and master key. I thought it was real."

Even though he was now partially convinced of Whitney's innocence, Tony still glared at Whitney one last time as the woman was helped up and held up by Bobby Drake. To Tony, both Iceman and Madame Masque looked repentant and confused with what had just taken place – what they had apparently been asked to do while thinking they were serving him. The inventor could think of a few ways to make sure everyone involved got a piece of his mind and that the incident never repeated itself, but he was also painfully aware that, this late in the game, injuring each other and turning against one another would only hinder their common cause.

Seeing nothing else that he could do for the moment, the genius stood up from the ground with a dazed Pepper in his arms, began walking towards the door with her in tow, and then briefly stopped only to verbalize a final musing to everyone present.

"I don't give a shit what you thought you were doing: don't ever try it again. And, for the record, if I ever wanted Pepper injured or dead, I'd do it myself."

The look of shock on all three members of the resistance army did not go away, even long after Tony had walked out on them.

xxxXXXxxx

He stood by the door to the main office, his hand on the knob as he was about to open it, only to then be hit on the cheek with all the force Tony could pack in his fist. The impact was great enough for the one-eyed man to fall to the ground, and as he shook his jaw left and right and rubbed it with his right hand, Tony towered over him and pointed an accusing finger towards him.

"You know damn well why I don't kill you right now, Fury. But I _will _deal with you later. And, I promise you: I won't be the only one not coming back from Latveria, you double-crossing son of a bitch."

The inventor did not give the fallen man time to retort before marching away, but he knew there was nothing else to do or say. The deed was done and the mission had been a success. Everything had panned out the way _they_ had expected it would. All that was left to do now was using the new information _they_ had gathered from the experience to adjust _their plans_ and to make sure their efforts were not in vain in postwar times.

The General stood up from the floor, opened the door, entered the office, locked the door behind himself, and then smiled at Nick Fury sitting in his chair across the room.

"Got what you wanted, Agent Stane?" the seated Nick coolly asked while he witnessed Madame Masque shapeshift away from looking like the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. to looking like herself again. It did not matter how many times he had seen it happen before his eye; the powers of the mask never ceased to amaze him.

"Yes," she sat in the guest chair across from Fury's and then nodded towards him and Maya Hansen – the latter standing near Fury, a syringe in her hand. "The serum works on Pepper. The disruptor works on Gene. And our suspicions that Tony and Pepper have experimented on themselves are true. Tony embedded the suit-activating wristband technology into Pepper's body. She can now call on the suit in a similar manner that Tony's Extremis can."

"Anything else?"

"Bobby bought into the memo issuing. And I can fake Tony's signature very well, or so it seems."

"I see," Fury said, eyed Maya Hansen for a second, waiting for her to inject him with the cancer-retardant nanobots he was due to receive, and then sighed when the brunette shook her head at him.

"He's good for another dose, Maya," Whitney told her. "As long as he makes good on his promise, he can stay alive… for now."

"And I will," Fury assured them once Maya injected him with the nanobots. "As long as _you_ don't hesitate on _your _part."

"I won't. After this, Tony and Pepper will trust me more than ever. There's no way I'll fail. They won't know it's me coming after him."

"I hope, for your sake, that they don't, Agent Stane."

"And I hope, for your sake, that you make sure _I'm_ the _only_ one to take a shot at Tony Stark. He is mine."

Seeing his hands were essentially tied in this matter, all Nick Fury could do was nod.

"I guess the blonde _will_ win this particular joke, in the end," Fury said in a jesting tone, not truly expecting a response from Whitney, but the blonde still replied.

"Of course I will: the redhead _always _comes last."

* * *

**A/N:** HAPPY NEW YEAR, MY FAITHFUL READERS!

Again, sooooooo sorry for the delay, but **here's another sneak peek to a future IMAA story I have in the works.** Hope to see you there too!

For his part, Tony was satisfied neither with her answer nor with her pensive look and defeated pose. She was not even staring towards him – her head was partly turned away and her eyes blankly stared towards the wall.

"Pep?" his whisper was not what caught her attention this time around. It was the fact that her eyes now faced his, all courtesy of his left hand tenderly placed on her right cheek. The first and only time that he had done something remotely similar to this, she had been inside the suit and on the ground, and he had been checking on her after one of the Makluan lizards had sent her flying away.

That time, she had been unable to see his eyes. Today, she was unable to hold his truth-searching stare.

"I'm fine," she looked towards his feet. "Just waiting on you."

He regarded her for another brief instant, one in which he glided his thumb up and down her cheekbone. She closed her eyes at the welcomed gesture, but when she continued to just stand there without saying a word or moving an inch, he dropped his arm, sighed quietly and dejectedly, and then walked away from her. The redhead followed suit behind him, almost mechanically so, and did not stop until she reached their destination in the middle of the room.

"You're gonna love this," he decided to let the mysterious unspoken issue be for the time being, and he waltzed over to the wall opposite to where she had been sitting just now. "Once you get the hang of it, I promise you're gonna wanna do it whenever you can."


	9. Chapter 8

**Guest Review Responses**

**Iron kid: Thank god you update this I was waiting forever it pretty good chapter keep up the good work but plz update soon as you be really want to see the ending **– Thank you SOOO much for continuing to read and review this crazy story! It means the world to me to see that people are still interested in it, no matter how long I take to update, and no matter how much it seems to drag on. Here's an update, posted within a month of the last one… this has gotta be a record, huh? :P

**Anon: Omg what?! I'm so confused. Still interested tho.. How many chapters is this going to be? Can't wait for the next update! **– I'm not sure how many chapters this is going to be, but I can tell you that I already wrote the last chapter, and that we're probably at the halfway point of it. I am trying to go as fast as I can with the story to not bore anyone, but I also don't want to rush it so that it feels poorly written or sloppily thought out. Like I said to Iron Kid, to the signed reviewers, and to anyone who has ever reviewed: this story is for you. I hope you enjoy this update too!

**A/N:** Sooo, this story is currently the highlight of my life. Like, seriously. Writing for IMAA is the only comfort I have for now (and my hubby, of course). Reason? Well, the company I have been working for the past three years shut down. Like, all of a sudden, without real notice, the company is closed. Got a letter saying how sorry they are, thanking me for the years of service, and buh-bye. So, I'm unemployed. Yet again. For the third time in my short professional life. WTF?!

Sigh.

I hope this chappie brings joy to my Faithful Readers, and please don't forget to drop me a line. Reviews are my drug, people, and they're in short supply :)

Oh, yeah! HAPPY V-DAY, EVERYONE!

* * *

**Chapter 8**

For the past two weeks, she had been pretending the moment would never come. She had distracted herself with other tasks and chores; with being with her husband, family and friends – with not talking about the events that would take place tonight. She had tried, desperately so, to not think about what she knew was coming to fruition in a few hours. For the most part, she had been quite successful at fantasizing the truth was not the truth. Yet, all the pretending and ignoring in the world would never change the reality she would be forced to face today.

She was torn – her heart, mind and soul were all cut in half. There was no other way of describing how she felt at the moment. She was unreservedly uncertain; drowning in a sense of helplessness that enclosed her in a cloak of indecision she would never learn to befriend. Stopping time would be her only solace. But then, she would be stuck in this feeling of emptiness for the rest of her life.

On the one hand, if time were to stop today, her father would never leave the safety of Muir Island to go back to the States, and she would never have to go to Latveria to face Doctor Doom. On the same token, if time were to stop today, she would never get to go to Latveria to face Doctor Doom, Tony would never recover his ability to use Extremis, and they would never see their child again.

_Damned if it does. Damned if it doesn't._

Time. It always came down to time.

Time had been what had allowed her to remember who she was after the submarine incident. It had allowed Tony to finally come to understand that pushing her away did not help either of them, and that together the two of them were not only better off, but that it made them stronger than anything else they could encounter along the way. Time had brought little James into their lives. Time had healed all injuries and pains.

Time had allowed them to come up with a fighting chance to save the world.

A week had passed by since Whitney had played punching bag with her in the VTR. And, in a week's time, she and her team would leave the island to begin their two-week trek to the borders of Doctor Doom's country. If it all went as planned, if nothing went wrong to the point that they could not work around it, in less than a month from today, Tony and she would be happily reunited with their son.

Oh, yeah: And the world would be free from Doom's wrath!

_I'm so selfish!_

The closer the time came to leave, the more this feeling of selfishness had creeped up on her. She knew that her son was not the center of anybody's universe but hers and Tony's. And she also knew that heading to Latveria was not only to rescue little James – Tony had not let her forget about that important fact. It went without saying, that the goal of confronting Doom was much more philanthropic in nature; making it out of there alive and with their son was icing on the cake. At the end of the day, saving the world from further decimation and lifelong dictatorship was truly was it was all about.

Begrudgingly so, she admitted that, in the grand scheme of things, this was not just about her son.

"Pepper?"

_Oh, crap,_ the redhead flinched when she realized she was no longer alone in her super-secret hiding spot. _She snuck up on me!_

Gene Khan would have shaken his head at her in disappointment for letting down her guard.

Pepper turned around, rested her bent elbows and back against the top of the rail of the emergency staircase in the room she had been hiding in, and then gave Jean Grey a nervous smile. She had not seen the woman in three days – not since she had inadvertently hurt her – and the redhead was not sure how to handle the unexpected encounter she should have been preparing for all this time.

"Hi," Pepper shrugged. "You-you look so much better!"

"I'd imagine. I can walk, talk, and react to the world again," Jean deadpanned, stood next to her, and rested her arms on the rail, facing the opposite direction Pepper was.

"You know, I can't read your mind or see the future or whatever, but I can read your aura. And even though I can see that you're kinda joking just now, it's still not nice to say things like that. Especially when I didn't mean to hurt you. Or the Professor. _And _especially since I still feel so bad about it."

To her surprise, Jean laughed aloud.

"Scott was right. You _do_ ramble on when you're nervous."

"I, uhm…" Pepper looked away from Jean's smirking face and cleared her throat. "Sorry."

"Don't be. Like you said, you didn't mean it. And I shouldn't have tried to pry."

"Yeah, well," Pepper one-side shrugged. "I shouldn't be reading people's auras all the time, or messing with them, but, well, you know…"

"It's hard to stop."

"Yeah."

"It's like a drug."

"Yes!"

"You can't help yourself," Jean smirked.

"YES!"

"And you're doing it right now."

Pepper's eyes widened. She was surprised that she had been caught trying to gauge Jean's true reasons for searching for her. A light blush tinted her cheeks when Jean's smile widened even more at seeing how embarrassed the redhead was.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," Jean shrugged. "I had it coming. I… I should've just asked you what I wanted to know."

"Well, why don't you ask me now?"

Jean's gulp was as noticeable to Pepper as her aura change was. The woman was very uncomfortable, nervous, and a tad upset. Pepper could not imagine what Jean could possibly want to know about her that would instill such commotion within the member of the X-Men. Luckily for her, she would very soon find out.

"Pepper," Jean began. "Are you… do you… do you hate me?"

Pepper's look of utter shock and confusion was slightly amusing to Jean, in spite of it all. She watched her as Pepper's dilated eyes traveled her body up and down, clearly scanning her aura and intentions, and when the ginger's face continued to be one of perplexity, Jean's anxiety increased tenfold.

"You're serious about the question," Pepper stated more than inquired when she became certain that there was no hidden meaning behind Jean's words. "You seriously think I hate you? Why?"

"Well, because," Jean sighed, "Because of Scott. And, because of the way he and I got together, and… I just… And, the two of us, we haven't really had the chance to, well… not-not even during your wedding… Which was beautiful, by the way… And–"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa… WHOA!" Pepper shook her head, turned to her right side to partly face the woman, and then scoffed. "Jean, I… I never, NEVER, hated you, or blamed you… or whatever it is that you think I did. I… I didn't do right by Scott. I-I made him miserable, for a large part of our relationship. He-he tried so hard. But, well… my heart was never 100% in it. I tried, but… but there were some things I hadn't been told about myself back then. I… the last thing I ever wanted to do to him was break his heart."

"I know, and that's why I neither blame you nor hate you for it. But I have been remorseful that Scott and I got so close while you guys were still going out. I knew he had a fiancée. I knew he was trying to work things out with you. But… but, you know… he's just so… so…"

"Noble," Pepper stated with a small smile. "Loving, patient, caring and noble."

"Yes," Jean nodded. "And I… I took advantage of his crushed feelings. I… I practically stole him from you!"

"No, Jean. You didn't. I… I couldn't have ever given to him what he deserved. You-you actually saved him from a life of dissatisfaction. I'll never be able to apologize enough to him for what I did."

"He doesn't blame you, either," Jean was prompt to point out when she noticed Pepper's head now hung in shame. "He's happy that you're happy. And he's happy himself."

"I know," Pepper shrugged and pointed to the wedding ring on Jean's left hand. "I can read auras, you know?"

Jean chuckled, nodded slightly, and then mirrored the redhead's posture to face her as well.

"So, we're OK?"

"Yeah," Pepper gave Jean a smile. "We were never _not_ OK."

Before Pepper could react, Jean threw her arms around her, hugged her quickly but fiercely, and then pulled back as swiftly and abruptly as the hug had begun. Pepper could see that Jean's anxiety was already melting away, and for that she felt relieved. She had started to notice that this Extremis-granted aura vision, and the energy manipulation that Gene had taught her, were finally showing signs of possible side-effects; one being that people's abundance of stress tended to spill over to her, even if she did not want it to do so.

Another somewhat of a drawback was the fact that when people tried to read her mind, they tended to not be able to do so, no matter how strong their mind-reading abilities were – even if an _enhancer_ was being used for the task, such as Cerebro. Moreover, it had been discovered, just a few days ago, that when a telepath tried forcing his or her powers on the redhead's mind, it tended to backfire on them: just as it had backfired on Jean Grey and Professor Xavier, both of which had ended up in a state similar to a coma for several days.

At the very least, something good had come out of that unintentional harm Pepper had caused to the two strongest telepaths she knew: it was proven, beyond a reasonable or scientific doubt, that Doctor Doom would have _no_ chance whatsoever to take control of the ginger's mind, no matter what he tried to pull on her. Extremis appeared to have an abundant hold on the redhead, or – as Maya had put it – Pepper _was_ Extremis, and Extremis did not take orders from anything or anyone else other than itself.

Virgil Potts had even joked around about this, stating that perhaps, this was the true reason why Pepper had never been able to take 'no' as an answer for anything she had wanted to do, no matter how young she had been.

_Dad._

Thinking about her father made silence befall them for a while, as Pepper returned to her bitter thoughts. Even if she had distanced herself from everyone else to think and reflect on what today would bring, she did not have the heart to ask Jean to leave. Her presence did not bother her, anyway, or at least not enough to warrant asking for some space, but it did keep her from talking to herself – an activity that she had found was quite helpful when she was tense. Happy had told her it was the first sign of madness. Rhodey had asked her to see a doctor, and Tony had simply silenced her worries with a kiss.

No one wanted her to worry too much, or at all. Yet, no one seemed to understand that speaking her thoughts aloud helped her cope.

After a loud sigh, Pepper rested her arms on the rail again, stared straight down towards the bottom of the emergency staircase, and then felt a familiar prickle on her temples that she recognized as having felt once before.

"Still can't do it?" Pepper teased, a Tony-Stark-patented smirk on her lips.

"No," Jean groaned.

"Just testing it or do you want to know something specific?"

"Both," Jean shrugged.

"What do you want to know?"

"Tonight. How are you feeling about tonight?"

Pepper shut her eyes, swallowed hard, and clenched her hands. "I'll be alright."

Jean scoffed. "I don't _have_ to read your mind to tell you're lying."

"You_ can't_ read my mind to tell if I'm lying."

"Touché," Jean snickered, no offense taken by the redhead's words. "But seriously, Pepper. I'm here for you. This is what I do. I… Well… between Bobby and I, the only two possible therapists on the team, who would you prefer to talk to about how you feel?"

Pepper opened her eyes, stared directly at Jean, and then narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

"Tony sent you here, didn't he?"

"Uhm…"

"It's alright," Pepper straightened out her back, turned on her heels to once again rest against the rail, and then shrugged. "That's just what he does, that weird, overprotecting nerd of mine."

"He loves you, Pepper."

"I know. I love him, too."

"But, you don't understand. I… I have never, _ever_, read so much passion and devotion for someone else in a person's mind before. It was… just…"

"Overwhelming," Pepper replied, having seen first-hand on her husband the visual manifestation of what Jean was talking about.

"Yeah. To say the least."

"I do. I _do_ understand. I feel the same for him."

"I can tell. No powers needed to see that between you two."

"Then tell him I'll be OK. I told him I would be, but he's probably not convinced, since he sent his team's _Voice of Reason_ to reason with me."

Jean laughed aloud and shook her head. "Yeah, he did. And you just proved to me that what I told him was spot on."

"Which was?"

"That the people to support you in dealing with this anxiety of yours should have been him, Rhodey and Happy. After all, you'll all face the same situation, very soon. Whatever it is that you're feeling right now, the other three are probably feeling it too."

Jean was not wrong. Pepper knew this to be true. Yet, knowing this was the case and knowing what to do about it to help her friends cope when she could not do it for herself, was a completely different story altogether.

"Maybe I should be doing what they're doing right now: spending time with our parents before they leave."

"Perhaps, you should."

"But I can't."

"And why is that?" Jean inquired with true curiosity.

"Because I'm needed elsewhere," the redhead replied when she felt a third person joining them. Pepper looked over her left shoulder towards Whitney Stane's standing form, stared up and down at the agent, and then looked back towards the flight of stairs.

"It's time," Whitney said even though she had been able to instantly tell, by the way Pepper had just gazed at her, that the news she brought with her was not news to the redhead. "Everyone's ready for the final calibration test."

xxxXXXxxx

_After Tony's statement regarding who was to play the Voice of Reason for each team, the room went silent. The genius had showered them with so much information back-to-back, that it was difficult to take it all in at once, let alone agree with it. Particularly so, the portions of his strategic plan that emphasized how much of the world's fate was resting on their shoulders – how their active roles in this complex plan of his affected the outcome of the mission. Their success was non-optional. The small group of vigilantes/heroes had their work cut out for them. They had to come out on top, no matter what._

"_Anyway," the inventor began, "Not everyone is going to Latveria, for obvious reasons. We still need to have our… Command Center, I guess, up and running throughout the entire undertaking. Living Laser will be navigating back and forth from here to our checkpoints, and to the locations of other smaller groups of vigilantes around the world that are also going to do what they can, from where they are, on our mark. AKA: when we make it to Castle Doom."_

_Tony swallowed hard in slight apprehension as he changed the screen to the next slide. He knew he was getting closer to the most difficult part of the presentation – the part that would surely enrage his wife and his closest friends. None of them had truly been privy to the details of (or to all of the deliberations) that had led him to the final tactical decisions he had made for all of the assignments. Most especially, not the ones related to the bombshell he was about to deliver on his redhead and his friends._

"_Professor Xavier will be staying behind, in Muir Island, leading and monitoring the operation from here. Dr. __**Betty**__ Ross will also stay behind, to support him. Dr. Ross," Tony smiled at the man who could now be considered their family doctor – the man that had helped care for his redhead and his son, "He will give all of us a full physical exam before we leave. We're going to be vaccinated, prepped for harsh environmental and questionable sanitary conditions, and he will also monitor our vitals from afar using the chips Maya will embed in our necks to delay Doom's Mainframe mind control. If, medically-speaking, something goes wrong that we can't patch up ourselves, he'll be deployed to our location, ASAP."_

"_That's… __**so**__ risky," Pepper eyed the doctor that had helped deliver her son. "Dr. Ross, you-you don't have to do this. You… you could…"_

"_I know, Mrs. Stark," the doctor, who had been brought to the facility months ago after being shot by Nick Fury with a TASER in his office, kindly smiled at her. "Mr. Stark has let me know, in no uncertain terms, the dangers I would encounter if I were to be flown to help out in the field. I assure you: I'm willing to take the risk."_

_Pepper exhaled loudly, lowered her head, and then closed her eyes. The number of loved ones that were putting themselves in danger for this death mission was becoming too much for her to bear. She knew that going against Doctor Doom was everything but your run-of-the-mill mission. Going against the ruler of Latveria was suicidal, to say the least – and that was taking into consideration how highly skilled most of the individuals facing him were._

"_That's the overall breakdown of our main mission. But, there's one more group that will help out in the field. They're not going to Latveria with us, but their contribution is as valuable as ours. They," Tony hesitated for a second as he stared at his wife, "They're actually __**returning**__ to the States."_

_At the mention of the words "returning" and "the States," Pepper's hands turned into fists; her head lowered even more._

"_At this point, I'll only need Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Lila, George, Roberta, David, Diane, Virgil, Trish, Bambi, Jarvis, and my dad to stay behind. Everyone else is free to go. You'll all get a detailed printout of the mission. Talk to me if you have any questions about it. Don't assume anything that's not already clearly stated on the printout. Study it. Memorize everyone's part. Know your part by heart. There'll be very little communication between us once we're out there. Everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing: where, when and how. This won't be like training in the VTR: there won't be any do-overs for this. Any questions?"_

_The room went silent again._

"_Alright. Thank you for your time."_

_As the billionaire had requested of them, everyone but the thirteen people he had mentioned just now, left the meeting room. Throughout the few minutes that it took for the transition to take place, and for the now empty chairs to be filled with whoever had been standing, Tony's eyes were on Pepper. However, not once during the entire time did she lay eyes on him._

_Seeing no point in waiting anymore, Tony sat down, sighed, and began explaining the mission to the younger crew present – a mission the older adults had already consented to perform._

"_We don't know if we're going to win or lose this fight. We don't know how successful we'll be once we get to Latveria. We don't even know if winning will come with us not losing our lives. But none of that changes the fact that there are innocent people suffering right now. We all saw the reports. People died. People are __**still**__ dying. They're homeless. Sick. Starving. Afraid."_

_Tony took a moment to let his words sink in, eyed Rhodey, Happy, and then Pepper – the last of whom was still not making any eye contact with him, and then spoke once more._

"_David, Roberta, Virgil, Diane, Lila, George, Bambi, Trish and my dad, have all agreed to return to the U.S. to begin coordinating recovery efforts. They'll help as many people as possible, around the world, using whatever resources are still available. They'll leave on a stealth Quinjet, a week before Team A leaves. At night."_

_**Silence**__ appeared to be the word of the day, as it again described the current situation in the meeting room._

_Each grown child took a moment to stare at their parents – birth, adopted or married into – their saddened eyes and broken postures doing the speaking for them. It was one thing to suit up yourself and go to war. It was another to send your family to war – without protection or a suit._

"_When," Rhodey cleared his throat and grabbed his mother's hand. "When was this decided?"_

"_About a week ago," Tony replied. "It wasn't even entirely my idea, actually. It was mostly theirs," Tony gestured towards the parental units in the room with a sweep of his hands. "They brought it up first."_

"_Is that supposed to comfort us, Tony?" Pepper finally stared at her husband, a look of betrayal shining in her eyes. "Is that supposed to absolve you from approving this?"_

"_Pepper–"_

"_No!" she slammed her fists against the table before she pointed an accusing finger towards the blue-eyed inventor. "You don't get to do that, Tony! You don't get to 'Pepper' me into accepting this! You know I believe in you, and I trust you. You're in charge – in this mission and, for the most part, in our marriage, too – while I willingly follow your lead. I get that. And I support you in any way I can. But… but this is NOT right! This is NOT the way to do this!"_

"_Potts," Tony's voice reeked of what was immediately recognized by the ginger as his I-will-tolerate-no-backtalk-and-I-am-in-command-here tone. He hated being so stern with her. He hated having to play Boss-Man with her, especially when he did not like what he had to do, either. But, at this point in the game, he had to set some boundaries and ultimatums. For __**her **__sake. For __**his **__sake. For their __**son**__'s sake… and for the sake of __**the world**__._

"_There IS no right way of doing anything around here," he continued. "There is no manual to doing this. We do what we can with what we have. And what we have ain't much. The world is not just us, our friends, our family, or just our son, Pepper. The world is __**everyone**__ who's still alive."_

"_And this is the best you can come up with, you __**genius**__?" Pepper stood up from her chair, a move that Tony instantly mimicked, and that made everyone else present stiffen up. They knew that Tony and Pepper, as any other couple in the world, argued from time to time. They knew they had had their fair share of differences in the past – even when they had been just friends. But not once – not __**once**__, had they been the first-row witnesses of a truly heated Stark-Potts argument until now._

_The old adage of there __**always being a first time for everything**__, was about to become a stinging reality for them._

"_Stand down, Pepper," Tony deadpanned. "This is not a discussion or a negotiation. This is what it is, and that's the end of it. I'm just giving you the courtesy of finding it out from me."_

"_Uhm, guys…" Rhodey began, but his words were completely ignored by the quarreling couple._

"_No," Pepper began walking closer to him, her left index finger pointed in the general direction of where her seat in the meeting room had been during the briefing. "I… I just stood by you, Tony. Right there, supporting you through the most unstable planning I've ever heard in my life. But this… this is crossing a line, Anthony Edward Stark! I do __**not**__ condone this!"_

"_Uh, Pepper…" this time, it was Happy who had tried intervening, but his attempt was as unsuccessful as Rhodey's._

"_It's __**not**__ your decision to make, Patricia," Tony retorted calmly, also taking steps towards her, the use of her real name an attempt to not bring his deep feelings for her into play. He was aware that she did not like to be called by her adopted name – and the memories that using said name brought to him still stung. Yet, he also knew that seeing her as his wife rather than one of the members of the resistance would endanger her and everyone else while out in the field. He had to make sure that she understood how serious he was about his decisions – about his thought process. He needed to refer to her, in this moment, as a __**person he was leading**__ and who was recklessly questioning his authority and his ability to make sound decisions for the team, rather than as __**his much-loved wife**__._

"_You're not in charge here," he continued, his voice still stern and firm despite his rapidly beating heart and shaking hands. "I am. __**Yours**__ or anyone else's acceptance of __**my**__ terms for this plan is __**not**__ required, Potts. You're only__** required**__ to comply."_

_The loud gasp in the room was clearly missed by the two standing members of the resistance group._

"_What?" Pepper narrowed her eyes, her form now standing inches from his. "Who the HELL do you think you're speaking to, Stark? One of your damn inventions?"_

_Everyone's eye widened even more as their points of view hopped back and forth from Tony to Pepper, unsure of who had the worst temper at the moment. It was common knowledge that both young adults had always had strong personalities – and even stronger convictions. Nevertheless, watching them use them against another; hearing the passion in their beliefs being voiced so intensely – so candidly, was a sight that no one in the room would ever be able to replicate or to forget. _

"_I'm speaking to my wife!" he replied, resorting to exploiting the bond she had just stated they shared as a way to end the discussion when the endeavor of using his leader-to-follower relationship failed to do the job; the aggravation in his voice a tad too noticeable for his taste. He did not want to go off on her. He did not want to argue with her or hurt her even more. He did not want to __**demean **__her authority, her intelligence, her abilities, or her value as a person. But she had to understand. He __**had**__ to quickly make her understand, if not agree with him: the world was still spinning. Innocent civilians were still suffering. He had – __**they**__ had – to think past their personal investment in this mission, and start assisting those who could not help themselves. _

"_And as my wife," he practically pressed his chest against hers, "__**You**__ need to listen to me and do as I say on this!"_

_If Pepper's stance had been any indication that she had been, up to this point, simply more than a little bit angry at Tony, her eyes now shone with the fury of a thousand exploding volcanos and the rage of all of the world's most tempested seas combined. This inflexible side of Tony, she had never seen used against her. She had definitely heard about it. She had even seen it used being against other people, mostly disgruntled employees or anyone who had deeply hurt him; but never against her. Not even during their most intense arguments, had he ever pulled rank or gender role on her in the way he was doing so at the moment. Even as part of Team Iron Man, he had never talked down to her as he was doing so right now. She felt powerless, desperate to be heard, and for her thoughts to be considered, but he was not yielding on his stance. Not even a millimeter. Not even for a fellow team member who had proven, on multiple occasions, that she was worthy of her opinion being considered and heard._

"_Did you seriously just second-class citizen me, Tony Stark?" she growled, the shock and pain in her voice almost making his resolve crumble._

"_Kids, please…" Howard's effort at soothing the twosome was to no avail._

"_Call it whatever you want," Tony moved even closer to her, forcing her to tilt her head back to be able to hold his overpowering gaze. "We're all doing things we don't want to do."_

_The redhead glared at her husband for a few more seconds before she turned her head to the side, stared at everyone for a moment, and then spoke one command everyone was willing to fulfill._

"_Give us the room."_

_As quickly as the last word left her lips, the ginger and the inventor became the only two people in the meeting center._

xxxXXXxxx

"Alright, Tony. This is the last time we run these tests on you. Just relax and let us make sure everything's fine."

He knew that Dr. Ross's words were meant to lessen his anxiety during his final medical exam; yet they did everything but ease his concerns. Tony's mind had not stopped working on overdrive since Fury had given him the charge of the mission. He doubted his brain would stop overstraining itself until everything was said and done. Or until he was deader than dead. Whichever came first.

Most likely, for him, the two events would take place at the same time.

"No luck with Extremis, Betty?" Tony spat out, trying his best not to think about what he could do very little about.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Betty Ross shook her head. "There's just no way we can reactivate Extremis in you without exposing a lot of what we're doing here to Doctor Doom, including our current location. We're turning it off completely right now, so you may feel a little bit off for a few days. The odd feelings will go away by the time your team is ready to leave, though. We're using a different procedure than Pepper used on you before to tame it. There will be no side-effects with this technique."

"Are you flushing some of it out?"

"No. We still don't know how to separate it from you without killing you. Maya said that not even Killian has figured that part out."

Tony held back a frustrated sigh he knew neither doctor deserved to get from him. If the creator of Extremis could not make heads or tails on how to safely remove the symbiotic relationship between infected host and the virus, there was no chance in hell anyone else would be able to give him the cure he needed in a week's time. Going into battle without Extremis was going to be challenging, despite how much he had been preparing for it, or how much he had done it in the past, failing heart and all. The connection between his suit and his brain were crucial in increasing their chances of success – yet it also was the main weapon Doctor Doom had against the leader of the vigilante group.

"Well, boy," Doctor Ross' words caught the attention of the young billionaire, "How is it that this hand's healing so fast? Whatever you're doing, it almost rivals the healing capabilities Extremis gives you!"

Tony stared at the limb in question and smirked at the doctor.

"Gene's witchcraft," Tony joked. "Some Chinese balm he gave to Pepper and made her put on me. I was skeptical about it, to say the least. But the damn thing's working."

Tony flexed his fingers and noted how the pain of pulling the bruised skin was no longer there. After he had scrapped his hand trying to save Gene from the Makluan disruptor in the electrical room of the underground facility, he had been fearful that his injury would get in the way of their plans. He was an inventor, after all – he needed full use of his hands. Especially his right hand, since it was his dominant one. Nonetheless, Gene's version of a _thank you for saving my ass_ – the balm he had given the genius – was slowly but surely dissipating these fears.

_"So, Gene was attacked by a, what would __**you**__ call it? A quantum dot energy disruptor?" Rhodey asked his childhood friend, his arms folded over his chest._

_ Tony's eyes widened at hearing Rhodey's accurate description of the device they had been speaking of._

_ "That sounds too nerdy," Happy said with a shrug. "I'd just call it a Makluan power interference thing-a-majig!"_

_ Tony's left eye twitched at realizing that Happy's description of the device sounded too much like the one the inventor had used himself to describe Gene._

_ "I think Rhodey's version is more accurate, Hap."_

_ "Whatever. Nerds."_

As he stared at portions of his hand that were already healed, Tony recalled the aftermath of the incident that had led to this particular wound. Even if he and Gene had returned to the electrical room shortly after getting Pepper out of the VTR, they had never found the broken pieces of the disruptor, making it impossible for Tony to analyze it and determine where it had come from. The sources of such an ill-intended device could easily be attributed to S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to control the Mandarin after years of failed attempts at having the upper hand against the most powerful supernatural being on the planet. Tony had even considered Maya Hansen to be behind the whole thing as well, simply because he still failed to fully trust anyone that had once betrayed him in the past. Needless to say, there were a handful of people on this island that fit this description. In the end, it appeared as if this particular inquiry of his would forever remain unanswered.

"Done," Dr. Ross patted Tony's bare back, pulling him from his thoughts. "You're good to go!"

"And just in time, too, it seems," Betty added when she saw Jean Grey standing by the door.

"You read my mind, Betty," Jean joked.

Tony thanked the two doctors with a nod, jumped off the gurney, put his shirt back on, and then eyed Jean while he straightened his clothes.

"Ready for the test?"

"Yeah, we all are," Jean replied. "We're just waiting on you."

_And your wife is fine_, Jean added telepathically, earning her a thankful smile from the blue-eyed boy.

xxxXXXxxx

_A monster._

_A heartless, ruthless monster._

_Maria Stark hardly ever resorted to using such a horrible term to describe people she was acquainted with. Nevertheless, there was no other adjective she could think of, at the moment, to voice what she thought of this man. Actually, truth be told, she could think of __**plenty**__ other better suited yet stronger descriptors to attach to Aldrich Killian. However, since she was in the company of her four-year-old son, she had to watch her tongue._

**Anthony**_, the woman stared at her unsuspecting son, his little legs allowing him to curiously dash around one of the main R&amp;D labs of Stark International, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in. She had brought him with her so that he was not bothering her husband while he met with Obadiah Stane to argue, yet again, about permanently closing the weapons engineering division. However, as she had been walking around the building with her son, her mind had begun putting the pieces together of the terrible suspicions she had had of Aldrich, for months. The papers and pictures before her, all gruesome and inhuman in nature, were screaming at her that, perhaps, her son was better off being away from the lab right now._

"_Anthony," Maria walked over to her son, "Anthony, look at me."_

"_Mama?" the little boy of striking blue-eyed stopped his tinkering with a shiny object that had caught his attention._

"_You know you're a big boy now, don't you?"_

_The boy smiled widely, rested his fists against his hips and partly puffed out his chest. "Yes, Mama!"_

"_OK. Then I need you to do me a favor. It's something that only big boys can handle. Can you help me?"_

"_Uh-huh."_

"_Mommy needs to do something really important right now. Grown-up stuff."_

_Tony frowned. "That means I have to go play somewhere else?"_

"_Yes, baby. But only for a little while. Can you go find Trish and stay with her?"_

"_Trish?" the boy furrowed his brow, scratched his head, and then smiled when he remembered who his mother was talking about. "Oh, the nice, candy lady!"_

_Maria smiled. Trish, Stark International's latest business management intern, had been a godsend to her and Howard in these challenging times. Now that her husband had given up making weapons, the transition to becoming a leader in world-serving technology rather than weapons manufacturing had been difficult. Plenty of investors had left them. New tyrannical ones had come in. The media had bashed them. The internal reorganization of SI had been brutal… all while trying to raise their only son._

"_Yes, that's Trish. I need you to find her, tell her I'm busy working on something, and that I'll come get you when I'm done. Do you understand, Anthony?"_

"_Yes, Mama," Tony replied._

"_OK," she kissed his forehead and pinched his cheeks. "I love you, Anthony."_

"_I love you too, Mama."_

_Unbeknownst to her, these loving words were going to be the last ones that Maria Stark would ever say to her son; and the last time he would ever see her alive. Unbeknownst to her, and despite being inside the only lab in the entire building with no security cameras, she was currently being watched. Her movements were being observed with extreme caution, from afar – her fate already decided for her the moment she had accidentally tripped the secret alarms in this particular SI lab. _

_Aldrich Killian, the man she had once trusted, had been using her for experimentation, just as he had done so with many other women in the past (as verified by everything she was learning about his clandestine experimentation, at the moment). The only reason Maria Stark was still around was because Aldrich felt close to her – attracted to her, even – and she was still of use for his cause. However, as she continued to dig through the piles of incriminating evidence she could use against the creator of Extremis, Aldrich sighed from his location in the main entrance hall of SI. He had been taking a lunch break, going over the details of his still unstable serum, when he had received a notification of an intruder in his lab._

_Somehow, perhaps due to his natural ability to incite trust in people, Aldrich Killian had convinced Howard Stark, many years back, not to install security feeds in his lab. Since the scientist had been hired under Maria's recommendation to further SI's new business vision, and after Aldrich had pointed out that having video recordings of an area that held much of the highly-advanced and proprietary elements of SI meant the government could one day seize their work, Howard had agreed wholeheartedly to keep the workings of Killian's lab under wraps. This decision had seemed reasonable at the time, but it would soon prove to be the only reason why no one would ever truly know what had actually happened to Maria Stark that had caused her untimely demise. And what was about to happen to Maria Stark would be the reason why Howard Stark would make sure, in the future, that every corner of his company had a working camera, at all times._

"_I really liked you, Maria," Aldrich whispered, his fingers on his ahead-of-its time laptop, initiating a remote countdown to end Maria Stark's life. "Why did you have to go and do that?"_

_He set the sequence in motion, always glad for his efforts to covertly inject individuals with a killing virus he could trigger when the right time came around. Killing people without leaving a trace was becoming easier and easier for him: he was almost a master at that. Then again, this should have not really come as a surprise to him that practice truly made perfect. If he was careful enough about this, he would not have to again change his name, face, and occupation after he killed Maria Stark. If this murder went exactly as he wanted it to go, no one would ever suspect foul play when the woman's heart suddenly stopped._

_He watched her leave the lab in a hurry, run down the hall that connected the lab with the unmonitored Level 10 R&amp;D wing, and as soon as she was to approach a security officer, Aldrich Killian pulled the plug on her life._

_Before everyone's surprised eyes, the wife of Howard Stark collapsed on the floor, busted her head open with the fall, and then lay motionless on the ground. It did not take long before the commotion spread through the building, or before the on-site medical team of SI began trying to revive the dead woman. Yet, Killian knew their efforts were pointless: she was as dead as she would ever be._

"_What a pity," regret momentarily filled the hazel-eyed man when he saw Howard Stark fall on his knees, take Maria Stark in his arms, and sob over her limp body. It was such a shame, having to resort to this, when it had been years since he had been forced to take such drastic actions. At least, this kill had been more merciful than his last. This time, thankfully for all, he had not had to resort to manipulating someone into blowing her brains out, as he had done so with his dearly departed, underage redheaded girlfriend, Jill, a few years back._

xxxXXXxxx

Twenty of the twenty-one volunteers that would travel to Latveria in the next few weeks all sat in silence inside the VTR. A circular formation of chairs had been arranged in the middle of the virtual training room, everyone facing each other, and everyone's back of their neck (sans Pepper's) had been fitted with the latest version of the mind-control wave deflector chip Maya had created. This was the last time they would have the opportunity to test the strength of the chips. This was the last opportunity anyone had to figuring out why Pepper was not affected by such waves or by telepaths.

Unfortunately for Maya Hansen, the resistance against the mind control waves varied greatly from individual to individual. She was not certain why this was the case, as everyone sported the exact same copy of the chip. The only explanation she could have given, if asked, was that since the chip she designed had been based on the same schematic for the UI chip AIM had once used to control Tony Stark's friends (and which had also been used as a base for Doom's modified version of The Controller's Mainframe), that the unique biology of an individual played an important part on the chip's ability to deter or reduce the impact of the waves.

This mission did not need yet another hyperbolically inconsistent variable. There were already too many _if's_. And yet…

"Everyone ready?" her voice resounded on the speakers of the VTR. Curt nods and thumbs-up were the only responses she got from everyone inside the VR room. Professor Charles Xavier, Doctor Ross, and Doctor Betty Ross, all stood with Maya inside the command chamber of the training room – all nervously waiting for the new results.

"Vitals are at base figures," Doctor Ross said.

"Minds are clear," Professor Xavier added.

"Sensors and safety features are ready," Betty provided.

"Then let's get this done," Maya pressed the button to start the test, which turned on the small device sitting in the middle of the circle of chairs in the VTR. "Simulating a one-mile radius source-to-subject distance in 3, 2, 1."

As expected, there was no noticeable change in anyone's ability to be in full control of their bodies and minds. The chips were not even working at a 3% capacity, which was a major improvement from the first chip prototype. It had been established, early on during these trials, that the chips did not need to be activated before being one mile away from the device – as long as Doom used said device only for them, of course. If the ruler of Latveria suddenly decided to activate the Mainframe's powers to the world, even if he could not do anything with it at large-scale without taking over Tony's Extremis' ability, then the chips would become unusable at the drop of a hat.

"That's good," the brunette looked over her shoulder to confirm with everyone else in the control room that everything was running smoothly thus far. When she received confident nods from the other three scientists in the room, Maya returned to her task.

"Begin simulating a three-quarters-of-a-mile radius source-to-subject distance in 3, 2, 1."

The working capacity of the chips increased to 12%. Everyone and everything else remained unaffected and unchanged.

"Alright," Maya swallowed hard, knowing the difficult phase of the evaluation was upon them. "Simulating a half-a-mile radius source-to-subject distance in 3, 2, 1."

As expected, based on previous trials, the chips' capacities began rapidly fluctuating from person to person. Some reached 25% capacity in the blink of an eye, while others skyrocketed to 60%. Vital signs began shifting as well; changes ranging from increases in heart rate, higher temperatures and surging brain activity, all lit up on Dr. Ross' screens. Professor Xavier also began sensing the formation of _mental fog_ in a few of the heroes, part of which was starting to cause confusion, disorientation, and the general jumbling of personal memories and forgotten dreams in their brains.

"Brace yourselves," Maya warned the test subjects before she reduced the source-to-subject distance to a quarter of a mile.

"Rogue's down," Betty said while she recorded the event on the log. "Her chip reached 100% capacity and fried."

"Scott's awake, but he's not focusing anymore," Professor Xavier admitted. "Count him out."

"Mr. Rhodes's blood pressure is dangerously high," Dr. Ross stated. "Kick him out now."

Without hesitation, Betty slammed with her fist the button on her screen that opened a floor compartment beneath any chair to remove a subject from the room during trials – one of the safety features that had been created for this very situation. The moment Rhodey was no longer in the VTR, his vitals returned to normal, but the atmosphere in the control room became as tense as the situation in the training room.

"Reducing the source-to-subject distance to 1000 feet."

"Agent Stane has passed out. Director Fury is in shock."

"Source-to-subject distance is now 500 feet."

"We're losing them."

One by one, almost every remaining member of the resistance was out for the count within ten seconds of Maya's last distance shift. After one minute of it, only Pepper, Tony, Nightcrawler, Maria Hill, Iceman, Bruce Banner, and Living Laser remained.

"Decreasing distance to 250 feet."

Full of concern yet unable to intervene, the redhead watched as Maria, Bruce, Tony, and Nightcrawler all passed out and were taken out of the room almost immediately after losing consciousness. She knew the feeling of having one's mind invaded, having been turned into a puppet by The Controller once before, along with her friends. But now that Extremis had awoken within her, this same technology did not even leave a tingle sensation in her brain.

"100 feet."

"Living Laser teleported himself out of the VTR," Professor Xavier said.

"50 feet."

Pepper felt Bobby's hand reach out to squeeze hers. She squeezed back.

"25 feet."

With a loud grunt, Bobby Drake fell onto the floor, eyes shut in obvious pain.

"10 feet. 5 feet. 1 foot," Maya allowed the machine to continue running for another minute, if just to make sure that Pepper continued to be immune to its effects. When it became evident to everyone that the ginger was as relaxed and unaffected as someone taking a walk in the park, Maya closed her eyes and sighed.

"Simulation over," the brunette finally said.

"Zero," Dr. Ross said. "Zero change for Mrs. Stark."

Seeing the machine turn off, the redhead dejectedly stood up from her chair, realized she was the only person left in the room, just as every other time this had taken place, and hoped against hope that this was not just a preview of what was to come.

If it all came down to this in the field; to just _her_ being the only one protecting her son against Doctor Doom, the world simply did not stand a chance.

xxxXXXxxx

_The existence and complexity of the human genome had always fascinated and intrigued Dr. Aldrich Killian. This organic blueprint of what it meant to be human influenced a person's life, even before birth. The moment the two life-creating cells merged inside a woman's womb, the type of life and inevitable death of an individual was decided then and there. One's DNA permutation determined physical and psychological attributes, mental aptitudes, whole-body-and-mind enhancements and limitations, and the inescapable path to one's grave._

_The intricacy of the human DNA code had driven his decisions since he had realized his particular path to the grave was destined to arrive before he was legally allowed to drink. He had refused to accept this decision, made without his consent, when he had still been just a clump of unrecognizable cells in his mother's womb. It was illogical, at least to him, for nature to grace him with an astounding mind and the possibility of a brilliant future career, only for it to fade before it really got to shine._

_What was it exactly that decided one's destiny prior to birth? Why did some useless people get to live forever, while some worthwhile individuals died before their prime?_

_Why had Tony Stark been given an easy route to a successful life of power? Why did the youngster waste his resources in looking for ways to better the world for every living soul in it, worthy or not?_

_It was probably his naiveté, Aldrich had once considered. Tony Stark, as bright as he was, was still young and impressionable. He was still a victim to the downside of a developing body and mind, teenage hormones, and a lack of focus in what he wanted to do with his life. Tony was still trying to figure out how life really worked – how to maneuver through the ever-changing rules it seemed to have. Aldrich Killian, however, after years of existence and experience, knew exactly how human existence functioned. _

**Unfair**_, Killian mused. _**Life is unfair.**

_Aldrich was yet to come to terms with the fact that Tony had made good use of Extremis in ways the creator of the virus was yet to achieve. All without trying. All without wanting or truly planning. All because of luck._

_Aldrich grimaced at the thought that had just crossed his mind. He knew better than that: there was no such thing as luck. Then again, he was certainly temped to believe in the fable of luck as he yet again analyzed the old test results before him: the results that told him Tony Stark was going to be a father, even if he had no clue at the time the test was run that he would be._

_Once Maya Hansen had brought a hair sample of Tony's, and using the blood the mutated crows had gnawed out of the redhead while attacking her in her home, completing the paternity test had been a breeze. There had been no doubt, whatsoever, that the child was Tony's. No doubt at all. Yet, proving that the unborn child the pesky redhead was carrying belonged to Tony Stark had only been the beginning of Aldrich Killian's 'luck.'_

_The likelihood of the child to carry Extremis was high, so an Extremis test had been run using the remainder of the redhead's blood sample. Not surprisingly, Extremis was present in her blood. But, at the same time, and unexpectedly so, there had been two other things that had stood out to him from those results: 1) the male half of the redhead's DNA sequence seemed awfully familiar to him; and 2) two different types of the virus existed within her._

_Two._

_Two unique strains of Extremis, both fighting for control inside._

_One belonged to Tony Stark, undoubtedly passed on to the redhead as part of the conception of the child. The other… the other he _**almost**_ did not instantly recognize._

_He had kept his suspicions to himself, as he always did when something caught him off-guard. He had never been one to admit faults or uncertainty; and he was not about to start now. With Victor von Doom as his volatile employer, and with Maya Hansen as his reluctant assistant, doubt coming from him was a sure way to either be killed or be given a very hard time._

_Gathering a hair sample from the redhead and her son after birth had been a task that was proving fruitful right now. Maya Hansen thought he had needed the sample to see the effects of a temporary Extremis invasion on the redhead's body due to pregnancy and birth. She believed that he had been searching for a way to harvest whatever ability the ginger had possessed to bring to term a difficult-to-nearly-impossible pregnancy, and to use this information to create a perfect Extremis serum that could be passed along from mother to child. And while these two scenarios were rather intriguing in their own right, the main reason why Aldrich had become particularly interested in the spunky redhead was because, as proven by the results of the latest tests lying before him, Pepper Potts was related to him. Patricia 'Pepper' Potts was __**his**__ daughter. She made Aldrich Killian as much of a father as James Howard Stark made one of the genius billionaire._

"_She made it," Killian smiled. "Even after all these years and all the odds, she made it."_

**A fighter**_, Killian thought. _**Just like her father.**

_However, just as it was the case with her father, Pepper's Extremis was not yet fully developed. It had been accidentally awoken by her near-death experience at the hands of Obadiah's daughter, but it was yet to completely mature. Continuous exposure to dangerous situations had assisted the once-dormant virus to take hold of her – to come to life within her entire being – to make her stronger and even more resilient, every time. To do what it had been designed to do: exist as one with the body, the mind, and the soul._

_Pepper Potts was not just Specimen 0 to him anymore. Pepper Potts was talking, breathing, and living Extremis Perfection in-the-making, all in one convenient package. _

_And, as if that had not been enough, she had just given him an updated variant of this nearly perfected version of hers, via her son: James Howard Stark; the little boy that would finally give his biological grandfather the solutions to his every need, the answers to his every thought._

_The answers Doctor Doom demanded. The cures both the ruler of Latveria and Aldrich Killian needed to live._

_Little James just needed to live a little while longer. And Pepper Potts just needed to 'die.'_

xxxXXXxxx

"_Pepper! Think about this logically for a second, please! If something happens to us in Latveria, but Howie makes it through, who's gonna take care of our son?"_

The reasoning Tony had given her, weeks ago, when she had first learned that her father was returning to the States, was exceptionally haunting for her at the moment. The argument that had ensued once everyone else had left the meeting room following Tony's mission briefing had been, for all intents and purposes, the worst fight she and Tony had ever had.

She had truly believed, for a brief moment, that Tony had been trying to put down her ability to make decisions simply because he could – or because being the leader of the counterattack had gotten to his big, arrogant head. When, in fact, he had simply been trying to spare her bearing the responsibility that came with authorizing and assisting with the departure of their parents and family friends. He had just been trying to protect her, just as he always did. He had just been trying to ensure their son was not left completely alone, if they were to not make it back from facing their Latverian fate.

She should have known better before she had gone off on him like she had that day. He should have known better than to play the military leader act with her – and poorly, at that. In the end, it all worked out, anyway. Or as much as it could work out, given the circumstances they had been forced to face.

"Pep, they're here."

Pepper pulled away from resting her face against Tony's left shoulder and looked up to see the U.S.-bound party approaching them. They were all carrying what they could of their little amount of belongings – mostly just a gym bag or a large handbag – as the means they would take to voyage home required that they traveled lightly. The Quinjet they would be boarding was the smallest they had in stock; it would barely fit all nine of them and the flight crew. However, it was essential to their survival during their trip to the U.S. that they were as inconspicuous and untraceable as possible, even if that meant being packed like sardines for the length of the flight.

The older adults finally reached their grown offspring, all of which were already standing up and facing each other, just before said youngsters reverted to being kids and simply threw themselves at their parents.

Trish took a step back and allowed Tony to hug his father with all his might. The poor young genius had already suffered the permanent loss of his mother, and the temporary loss of his father, too. Then, when Madame Masque had poisoned the elder Stark, shortly after his miraculous return, Tony had once more experienced the fear of possibly becoming an orphan again. Third time tended to be the charm, but Tony prayed that this did not turn out to be the case for them.

"I love you, Dad," Tony whispered to his father, and Howard had to bite back a sob.

Growing up, the relationship between he and his son had been rather unique, mostly due to the unusual composition of their family unit in the societal standing they were a part of. His son had been his only family after Maria Stark had died, so he had made a point of having Tony be with him at all times to somehow nurture the bond they had. He saw so much of himself in his son; not just physically or mentally, but emotionally too, and he had wanted to make sure Tony was given all the love, care and attention that two parents should have given him while growing up. He had always known that his son was more than just special; frequently misunderstood by, and not in tune with, peers of his own age. But the doting father had done his best to support his child. Even though the road had not been as straightforward as he had wanted it to be, in the end, Tony had turned out alright. In fact, more than just _alright_.

Unfortunately so, now his grandson was running the risk of growing up not knowing his father and mother, in a worse way than Tony himself had ever experienced in his entire life. This was the main reason why Howard was returning to the States: to make sure his grandson's legacy was intact. And also to help his son win this fight in the only way he could: by helping others stay safe, out of Tony's worrying mind, and doing whatever he could from afar.

"I love you too, Son. We'll be waiting for you."

Tony pulled back from the embrace, not caring that his glistening eyes could easily be discerned by somebody nearby. This was not the time to act tough or macho, or whatever anybody else wanted to call a grown man holding back his tears. This was a difficult situation within an already difficult situation on its own. This could very well be the last time he ever saw and spoke to his father, or with anyone else who was leaving tonight.

As Tony took a moment to embrace Trish, and Rhodey and Happy swapped parents to hug as well, Pepper continued to hold tightly onto her father, her sobs making Virgil's heart break in two. She knew that Loretta existed. She was aware that Diane Tincher was now also part of her and her father's life, and was standing near them. And she was also conscious that, in a lonely cemetery in New Jersey, laid the remains of her birth mother, Jill Hayes. But standing before her, at this very instant, was the man that truly deserved all the credit for who she was today – for what she had accomplished with her life and more.

She was her own person today, and among family and friends, because of the decisions Virgil Potts had made for them while she had been growing up: the man that had _intentionally_ _chosen_ her to be his daughter. The man who had raised her, all by himself, working hard to provide for her, as if she were in fact his own flesh and blood. She knew Virgil could have, at any point, returned her to the orphanage she had been sheltered in when she was just a baby. She knew he could have easily rid himself of the responsibility of parenting her when Loretta Potts had walked out on them. Nonetheless, it had been his choice to keep her. It had been his choice to not further dissolve the only family she had ever known in her short life.

It had been _his_ prerogative for her to continue being his daughter, and for him to continue being her dad.

This was why she had been adamantly against letting them leave the island: because she was selfish, unrealistic and childish, and she wanted her father to live forever; to never die.

"Daddy," Pepper sniffled.

"Yes, honey?"

"Aldrich," she nearly hiccupped. "Aldrich Killian may have… he may have contributed the male half of-of my DNA, but… but that's all he is to me."

"I-I know, sweetie," Virgil was shocked by her seemingly random confession. "You don't have to–"

"No, I do. I do," she pulled back slightly to look at his face, staring him in the eye as she poured out the thoughts that she could hold back no longer while she still had the chance. "_You_ are my father. You are my _real_ father. _Not_ that son of a bitch. Not _him_," she said fiercely before she hugged her father strongly again, and for possibly the last time.

"I love you, Patricia."

"And I love you, Dad."

After another moment of the bone-crushing embrace, the redhead finally pulled back completely from her father, and then hugged Diane as well. While she did so, Tony walked up to Virgil, extended his arm towards him, but was then surprised when Virgil pulled him into a tight hug.

"Take care, Son," Virgil told the inventor.

"I will, Virgil," Tony pulled away slightly. "And I'll do anything I can to send Pepper and Howie back home. I promise you that."

"What about you? Don't think you can get off the hook so easily, Tony. You already paid for the merchandise," Virgil jokingly said while he side-eyed Pepper, who was now bear-hugging Howard. "You can't return it now."

Despite the situation, and after a short second of confusion, Virgil managed to pull a laugh out of the blue-eyed man.

"You mean there's no warranty or insurance?" Tony continued the joke, trying to sound as appalled by the information as possible.

"None whatsoever," Virgil smiled widely before he and Tony hugged one more time. "And I still have my gun."

Tony chuckled, nodded along, and then finally pulled away from Virgil.

"I'll keep that in mind," the genius replied, his eyes on Pepper's form while she almost choked Trish with her hug.

After exchanging hugs, whispering kind words, and uttering teary goodbyes, the time for the parents to set out finally arrived. Unwillingly, the young adults took a step back and waved their parents and friends farewell as they exited the safety of the structure via an underground path that would eventually lead them to the surface, albeit in the middle of the woods, in the dead of night.

Whitney Stane and Living Laser were going to escort the party, on foot, to the location of the hidden Quinjet, about half a mile north of the underground lab. The Quinjet was going to be piloted by a group of highly-trained agents; its successful landing only traceable when they arrived to a satellite SI facility. It would take about eight to ten hours to reach New York, depending on the weather and evasive maneuvers needed to avoid being spotted by Doctor Doom. Meaning that, no one, not even the great Tony Stark, would know if the group made it safely home until the very next day, with no possibility of status updates throughout the night.

As the door that led to the underground path was shut, Pepper threw herself at Tony, and dug her face in his neck.

"Can we trust her, Tony?" Pepper mumbled against his skin. "Can we trust Whitney with this?"

"I think we can," Tony replied and circled her waist with his arms. "Besides, Arthur's there, too. He can fry her mask, if he needs to."

"Is… is that why you sent him with her?" the redhead looked up to her husband, rubbed her cheeks with her hands to dry some of her tears, and then sniffled loudly while her eyes returned to the closed door.

"Yeah. Although, at this point, as much as I still don't know how much to trust her… I-I think she'd at least think twice before harming them."

"Why?"

"Because she knows what it feels likes to lose a parent – or both. She knows what it's like to be alone."

Pepper returned her attention to her husband, breathed heavily, rested her forehead against his chin, and then closed her eyes.

"I hope so, Tony. I hope you're right."

"Me too," the inventor admitted, his eyes looking past the metal walls of the room. "Me too, Pep."

This was going to be, indisputably, everyone's longest night of their lives.

xxxXXXxxx

Cold water beads slid down his hung face and neck, causing a slightly just bearable prickly feeling to crawl on his skin. Their quarters were currently so quiet, and him so still, that the sound of the tiny drops of water hitting the porcelain surface of the sink and the metal countertop of the bathroom vanity was virtually deafening to him. He held onto the edges of the counter to support his weight, clenched his eyes shut, and took yet another deep breath that he slowly exhaled.

It was finally happening – the start of it all; the beginning of what he had planned for weeks. She was leaving the island tomorrow morning, at the break of dawn.

And he could not stop thinking about what this meant for him – for their son.

_Hey, Howie_, the inventor bitterly mused. _I sent your mom as the forefront to a small army to face Doctor Doom. Sorry she didn't make it! Ooops!_

His knuckles popped when he tightly clenched his hands.

He grabbed a hand towel to remove the remnants of the water he had splashed on his face, missing one too many spots on himself to even count as drying, but he did not care enough to fix the problem. The water on his clothes did not matter. They were gonna come off when he showered, anyway. The mess in the bathroom did not matter either; housekeeping would take care of it once noon of tomorrow came around.

Noon of tomorrow – when Pepper would no longer be by his side.

He jumped in his skin when he heard the door to their quarters open. He had once again lost track of time. He had been supposed to be using this time, a time when she had met with her team for last-minute preparations, to relax; to find a way to seem supportive and ready for what was to come. He had purposefully _not_ attended said meeting to gather his thoughts, to prepare for the inevitable, and to try his best not to add worries to her already busy schedule and loaded plate.

She was not supposed to come find him tearing at the seams, wishing he could stop time. She was not supposed to notice how much this imminent departure was ripping him to pieces. She was supposed to just return to their room to wrap-up her own personal preparations and to rest.

But when your wife could read auras and had known you and your antics for years, there was very little you could hide from her. At least regarding whatever related to how you felt about her leaving your ass to go to war.

He looked away from her when she walked towards him inside the bathroom, but she forced him to stare at her by leading his chin with her right hand. It took Tony a moment to raise his gaze from their feet to her face. Once he did so, his mouth hung in surprise.

And he then smiled.

He tenderly ran his fingers through her now short hair, recently cut to what it had looked like on her in high school, courtesy of a surprisingly talented _stylist _named Rogue, just a few minutes ago. He tilted his head to the side, silently questioning her on the change of look, and she simply shrugged. He placed his other hand on her head, combed her soft tresses and massaged her scalp to show her that he liked the haircut, but soon the innocent move took on a different route.

Without needing to utter a word since her arrival, the couple's lips inevitably found each other, and they began slowly kissing. His left hand rested on the back of her neck, his right hand on the small of her back, and he pulled her body flush against his own. The ginger circled his neck and shoulders with her arms, tiptoed to better reach his lips and, a second after feeling this, her feet left the floor.

Next thing she knew, she was sitting on the vanity, with Tony standing between her slightly parted legs. His hands abandoned their current locations on her body to explore the rest of it, despite how many times he had previously mapped her curves with his pores. Just as with anything that merit learning, he would always discover something new that would set her off – something new that he enjoyed doing with her, or to her; no matter how many times before they had been together like this.

She bit on his lower lip, ran her tongue on his upper lip, and then took her mouth to his left earlobe. She nibbled on it both carefully and hungrily, all the while her hands began removing some of the fabric barriers between them. He did what he could for her clothes as well, although he always found it difficult to concentrate on anything productive when she paid special attention to his ears. It was one of the highly sensitive spots on him – one that would probably make him agree to whatever she asked of him while nipping on it.

He felt her lips trailing down from his ear to his neck, and he took the opportunity for his hands to slide under her blouse, up and down her chest a few times, and then unclasped her bra. He was not sure which type of location he preferred for the fastener to be on. The front type was easier to maneuver, but the back type gave him yet another reason to slide his chest against hers. Once he heard the popping sound of the garment opening, he wasted no time in removing both it, and her blouse, from her.

While she would not believe it if he were to confess it to her right now, he had no idea where this session was heading. He was not sure if he wanted to bring it all the way, or just spend the time tenderly and slowly reimaging his mental maps of the topography of her body until they just had to call it quits for the night. This uncertainty came from not wanting to feel as if this was her way of saying goodbye to him; from not wanting to associate the best lovemaking session of his life with the last time he was with his wife.

He did not want to be grim about it. He truly did not. But with all the odds against them, and their track record of things never actually going the way they planned, it was almost criminal not to seriously consider the possibility that this could very well be the final occasion they would have to be like this with each other. What would someone else do in his situation? What was the better answer to this impossible riddle of his?

_Do what feels right_, his mind replied. _Just do whatever feels right._

What felt right led them to the shower, her back resting against the wall, his mouth muffling her moans, her nails drawing blood from his skin. It then found them on the bed, making sure every square inch of the uncomfortable pair of joined twin-sized beds was marked with both of their body prints. It found them trying different techniques they had never tried before – some of which had not even crossed their minds once – yet everything fell into the category his brain had just told him to keep in mind: it all felt right.

It felt right when he held her a little tighter, pressed his body against hers a little closer, and when they both breathed a little bit harder than before. It felt right when sensations of coldness and warmth were practically indiscernible, when shivers turned into signs and sighs of anticipation, and when tears fallen were of thriving desire and delight. It was alright that neither of them knew where one's body ended and the other began. It was more than just OK that the entire world was reduced in size to just the two of them. It was perfectly acceptable that the only type of air their lungs currently demanded came from the other's mouth.

He relaxed his muscles when he was shifted onto his back, closed his eyes in bliss, and lost himself in her caresses. He was torn between opening his eyes to marvel in her presence on his, or simply keeping his eyes shut to focus on what he felt and not what he saw. He then opted to performing a healthy balance of both options, using her ragged breathing and her seemingly insatiable roaming hands on him as his guide to decide when to do what. He just wanted to _live_ the moment, _enjoy_ the moment, and definitely not to think about what _this_ moment would lead into tomorrow.

As if detecting that his mind was trekking towards dangerous territory, he was quickly refocused onto the task at hand when she drew blood from his bottom lip. He whimpered ever so slightly, mostly out of reflex and surprise, but he was then promptly silenced by her tongue in his mouth.

_Are these the actions of a hero?_ Part of his very much unhappy yet realistic subconscious asked him. _Are these the actions of a true leader? Should you be relinquishing control of the current situation to her? Should you really be romping around with her instead of double-checking your plans? Is she the boss of you right now?_

_This woman can be the boss of me, whenever she goddamned fucking feels like it_, he mentally replied to himself, much to his subconscious' dismay. The statement had been true when he had relayed it to Maya Hansen, in not such eloquent terms, and it was still very much true right now.

She pulled his upper body up to hers so that he faced her chest, not once during the process diminishing the melodic rocking of her hips. He helped her stay in place by pressing his hands against her back, synching his movements with hers, and then awed at how the tone of her skin seemed to match her hair. She was glowing, glistening, her cheeks rosy; and her head thrown back was a guaranteed indicator that she was as much into this as he was.

He truly did not want to distract her or break her rhythm, but he could not help kissing her lower belly, briefly resting the side of his face against her chest as he measured how close to the final lap she was getting, and then flipping them over before she reached it so that he was on top of her again. He ignored her groan of frustration, and instead concentrated on paying special attention to her stomach and anything south of it. This had been the home of his son for nine months. This had been the safe haven of his offspring while he had developed and had become the amazing little creature he was. This was the part of her body that would, unfortunately, never again carry another baby for him. Despite how well thought out and mutual the decision had been to take permanent measures to keep the redhead from getting pregnant again, he knew it would always kill her that she could not give him a second child.

_Or a third or a fourth_, his delirious and hormone-laden mind mused and, for a brief instant, the inventor did not recognize who he was. He had never pegged himself as the kind of man that wanted his significant other to become nothing more than a baby-making machine to increase the chances of spreading and expanding his legacy on this Earth. He knew that, on a conscious level, he truly did not see Pepper's role in his life as being simply of the stereotypical child-bearing one, but he could not deny that there was something powerfully primal that pulled at him in knowing that your other half, your woman, was willing and able to go through the woes of pregnancy for you.

As he took the lead of their actions by grabbing her wrists to press her hands above her head and against the mattress, he locked eyes with her. His gaze was fixed on her hazel orbs, but his mind's eye was traveling back in time. It was allowing him to see her in high tops and white socks, admire her tanned skin peeking out of her black leggings and her pink and white long dress shirt, and then focused on her freckled face framed by the same hairstyle she currently sported.

This was the same girl that he had met in school, years ago, sans the currently missing clothes, staring back at him with an obvious overabundance of physical attraction for his body, an excess of uncapped desire for his continued presence in her life, and a boatload of never-ending, unconditional love for him.

He hoped. He wished. He _prayed_ that she was able to see in his deep electric blue eyes these same feelings, and more, also existing in him for her. At this point in time, there were no words in the entire world that he could utter to express perfect reciprocation of what he currently saw in her about him. There was no other way, at least not one that he had not already tried, to show to this wonderful woman of his how much of his overtly unpredictable lifeline was tied to the warm, vivid, and slowly burning one of her own.

And she would leave him. Tomorrow. And it was not certain if he would ever see her again.

He closed his eyes and leaned down to kiss her; all the while images of her face staring at his crossed his mind. He recalled the way her nose scrunched when she was angry, and the way her bottom lip curved up when she was sad or disappointed. He envisioned the twinkle in her eyes when something interested her or piqued her innate curiosity, and he pictured how her cheeks could match her hair when shame overpowered her. Recalling the sound of her soft voice when he needed comfort made him breathe raggedly, and the reminiscence of her little giggles made him smile against her lips.

He moved her hands from their current position above her head to force them to become trapped between the mattress and her back, keeping them there with his own. The extra mass underneath her, near the small of her back, caused her spine to arch and her chest to lift, inviting him to practically merge his torso with hers. His tempo rapidly increased, leading to realize that simultaneously kissing and breathing through their nose was becoming unmanageable, so he opted to ride the wave with her by resting his forehead against hers.

He spoke three languages, could recall entire books he had read years ago, just as if he had read them the day before; and he could write, interpret and memorize thousands of lines of computer code. Yet no real words came to mind as he joined her in the final lap of the race. Not one coherent word formed on his lips as she essentially growled his name, dug her nails onto the skin of his hands, and practically broke his hipbone with her thighs.

He was not sure how long the feeling lasted, or how long their minds were disconnected from their bodies. He was not really keeping track of any of it, anyway, but it did feel to him as if an eternity had passed; the _good_ kind of eternity, though. The one that makes you forget anything and everything bad in your life.

They remained still for another instant, neither able to do anything else other than shiver, gasp, and partly moan. Staying in place was uncomfortable, but so was trying to move, as the slightest of shifts in their current positions sent aftershocks through both of them – pleasurable aftershocks that their spent bodies simply were not able to cope with after all of it. Despite it all, he opened his eyes, pulled his forehead from hers, and then shakily pressed a kiss to her lips. He swallowed hard and licked his lips, actions that she completed herself as well. She then filled her lungs to the max, exhaled in short breaths, finally released her iron grip on his hands and hips, and he then released her hands from beneath her back.

Their bodies did not travel far when he recovered the full use of his limbs. He surrounded her waist with his arms, tangled his legs with hers, and then slowly shifted their bodies so that she partly rested on him. She used his upper body as a pillow, circled his waist with her still weak arms, and then placed butterfly kisses on his chest. She matched his breathing pattern, closed her eyes yet again, and then sighed in contentment in tandem with him.

After a few minutes of recovery time, Tony looked to his left to read the time on the alarm clock near him. If Pepper were to get a good night's sleep, which she needed to start the travels in high spirits, they needed to clean up the mess they had made, quickly shower (preferably together), and then head straight to bed, in no more than thirty minutes time. The redhead had done most of the required packing already, anyway; all her backpack, presently resting in a corner chair, was pending to be filled with were her toiletries, all of which she had to wait until the morning to pack.

Sensing that he was getting antsy now that the reality of their situation was starting to hit him again, Pepper slowly, and with a slight wobble, peeled herself from him, stepped off the bed, and then extended her left arm towards him. He smiled broadly, accepted her help, and then followed her to the shower stall. Once there, they again took their time cleansing the other, exchanging a kiss here and there, and then quickly cleaned after themselves.

After everything was said and done, and once they went to bed, Tony hugged Pepper, placed a kiss on the top of her head, and then verbally reminded her of what she meant to him.

As expected, and as they both needed it, she was more than happy to say it back before closing her eyes for the night.

xxxXXXxxx

His eyes opened slowly, but only to see something was obstructing his view. Due to how close the object was to him, it was difficult to make any shape or form of it. He cleared his throat, pulled his body up ever so slightly so that his chest was no longer completely pressed against the bed, and then realized that it was just his own pillow that was preventing his eyes from doing their job.

As if by instinct, his eyes landed on the alarm clock almost instantly. It took him a second for reality to set in and for his mind to recall where he was and what today would bring. Nevertheless, he was somewhat relieved to see that they still had about ten minutes before they had to get up. Today was an important day for him, for his wife, for their son, and for everyone. Today marked the first day of their efforts to fight back against Victor von Doom.

Tony grabbed the clock in his right hand, turned off the alarm so that it would not rudely disturb his redhead's slumber, and then turned around to look towards her side of the bed – a side that was currently empty and, as evidenced by his right palm now sliding over the sheets, was also very, very, _very_ cold.

He lifted his gaze and aimed it towards the open bathroom door. From his vantage point, the room appeared to be exactly as they had left it the night before. Mind you, he could only see part of the vanity, the toilet, and a peak of the hanging towels from the stall's door, but nothing seemed to really be out of place. His eyes then shifted to stare at the night table by Pepper's side of the bed, and he was surprised to see that her pinwheel necklace was laying there.

More specifically, he was _confused_ that _only _her pinwheel necklace was there.

Last night, amidst the throes of passion, Pepper had taken off his dog tags and had left them atop her necklace, on her nightstand. He typically did not take them off, and when he did, he usually put them in his pants pocket or on top of the bathroom's vanity countertop. The reason why her necklace was there but not his dog tags was not immediately obvious to him, until his orbs then landed on the corner chair where Pepper's travel bag was… or _had_ been.

It was now empty.

Of her bag and other belongings, there was no trace.

He slowly sat up in bed, trying his best not to panic when the pieces of the puzzle began giving him the big picture – a picture he refused to accept or see. It was perfectly possible that Pepper was right now in the dining area, having breakfast with her crew, while waiting for her husband to wake up and get ready for the day ahead. It was extremely plausible that she had decided not to take her precious possession with her, and that she had simply moved his dog tags to another location in the room in her rush to get ready for the day.

There was also another, simpler, and more Pepper-like explanation than the two he had just forced his mind to concoct and consider. Yet, said reason for the current state of affairs in the living quarters he shared with her was not one that agreeably resonated within him.

He threw the covers off him, got up from the bed, and walked towards his laptop. He booted up the system, waited silently for the three seconds it took for the computer to load, and then put in his password to unlock the damn thing. He had done all of this with the intention of clearing his mind of doubts and fears by checking the departure logs. He had done so with the intention of loading up the application they were going to use to: track the steps of the mission, the location of the teams when they reached the checkpoints, and for communicating with the SI satellite office in the U.S. to share information with the team that had left the island a week ago, and which had safely made it to their homeland as and when expected.

He had turned on the laptop to check on the mission status provided by the app, but once the screen finished loading up and his eyes skimmed through the only visible window, he knew he did not have to search any further for the answers he sought.

The short and simple apologetic message on the plain text editor screen of his laptop said it all to him.

Pepper was gone.

* * *

**A/N:** Ah, uhm, errrrr… Would you NOT throw rotten tomatoes at me if I gave you another sneak peek to a future IMAA story? How about a taste of the one I intend to post once this story is finished? Here it is:

Tonight, Anthony Edward Stark and friends, had all gathered to kiss the young man's single ass goodbye, as tomorrow, Tony Stark would be wed to the love of his life. Finally, after nearly a decade of dating, two years of which belonged to the engagement period to plan this massive wedding, and a lifetime of pair bonding, Tony Stark was once and for all going to tie the knot.

And he could not be more ready for it.

For years, he had waited for this moment. Ever since he had realized he was head over heels in love with his best friend. Years of courting her had led them both here, to this moment, and in a few hours, he would finally be able to call her his wife. There was nothing else than mattered to Tony right now. Not the expensive beer bottles before him. Not the handful of girls stripping and dancing before them, randomly sliding their glistening bodies against every single man attending his bachelor party. Not the illegal drugs some of his guests were inhaling from the strippers' perky and exposed breasts.

No.

Nothing else mattered to him.

All that mattered was her.

Tony's eyes wandered around him, making a mental note of where everyone's attention was at the moment. He then looked down to his lap to discretely take out his phone, and before he risked getting caught, he sent out a text message.

"_Miss you, babe. Can't wait for tomorrow."_

The reply was almost instantaneous, and it made him smile wide.

"_Me neither. Have fun ;) Love you."_


	10. Chapter 9

**Guest Review Responses**

**Toni: I had a strong feeling Pepper would do that. I wish you all the best in finding new employment :) – **TONIIIIII! WHERE YA BEEN! :D Guess what? I found a job! Finally! I start next week! Thank you for still being here ^_^

**Anon: Gah. This is so good. I really appreciate that you post long and well thoughtout chapters. I can't wait for the next update!'n **– Anon is back too! Here's another long chapter… that will probably give nightmares to some readers… maybe… sorta... ;) I really appreciate your support :D Thank you so much!

**A/N:** Hello, my Faithful Readers! I finally got around to updating this fic, YAY! It is my hope to finish it in the next two months or so (but hopefully much sooner that that). I've spent some time organizing the outline for the next chapters, and it appears that there won't be more than 20. I am aiming for 18, but have left some leeway for 20 in case the main scenes take a little bit longer to describe. I don't want to drag it for too long (you've all been so incredibly patient and supportive as it is), but I also don't want to shortchange you by rushing to the end. You've invested as much time and effort as I have following this project since _The Last Month_. I am indebted to you to give you the best story I can write :)

That been said, here's the next chapter. **FAIR WARNING TO EVERYONE:** This is a worldwide threat story; one that has events that had been planned out, years ago, so there will be mention of devastation, famine, and other gruesome things. My main concern, however, is the continued or new mention of cities under attack. Some of these will resemble recent real life events and/or historical facts, but I, by no means, endorse violence of any kind, or any listed here. If your city/town/country/continent is attacked in this story, please don't take it personally. It's not. I don't wish harm to come down to anyone or anything, but as a fanfic related to an egomaniacal man attacking the globe, I must include certain situations and/or actions that are less than favorable for certain parts of the world. I can't stress this enough: I do NOT support any type of terrorist attack on anyone. Live and let live, ya'll!

* * *

**Chapter 9**

_"Hey, Red: are you sure you want to do this?" _

_Iceman gently elbowed the redhead while they waited for the rest of the team to put on their swimsuits. They were going to swim in the frigid waters of the North Sea to board the submarine that was hidden underwater; said ship would take them from the island to the European mainland._

_ "It's kinda already done, don't you think?" she deadpanned, her eyes almost blank and staring forward, her right palm against her neckline. Her fingers traced over her thick clothes to feel the chain of Tony's dog tags that she had taken with her when she had snuck out of their room, a couple of hours ago._

_ "Well, not really, no. And I don't mean going back, you know? That would be stupid. But, I mean… Like, maybe you should at least call him while you still can. Tell him that–"_

_ "He knows," she interrupted him and spared him a glance to make sure her eyes told him to drop a subject that was painful for her. "He… he already knows."_

_ Bobby opened his mouth to tell her that no man, especially one who truly loved his wife as much as Tony Stark obviously did, would ever become tired of hearing his beloved tell him that she loved him. Nevertheless, when he noticed the effort it had taken for her to say the last few words, he decided that there was nothing he could really do at the moment to change her mind. They had left three hours before scheduled time, anyway. No one at the base was even awake at this point._

_ "Well, what if, as your second-in-command, I told you I was doing this for your own good. What if I told you that I was just doing you a favor, and that I know what's best for you? What would you have to say then, Ms. Strategist?"_

_ Pepper smiled, turned to face Bobby, and then placed a hand on his shoulder. _

"_I would say that it's very sweet of you, uncharacteristically noble of you, even," they both chuckled. "But that, if you really want to do was best for me, then you'll help me get this done as quickly as possible. That you know that what's good for me is to defeat Doom, get my son back, and return home with him and my husband so that we can all forget this shit ever happened and move on with our lives."_

_Iceman briefly narrowed his eyes at her, brought her closer to him by giving her a sideways hug with his left arm, and then sighed loudly in defeat._

"_Damn," he scoffed. "That __**IS**__ the better option for you now, isn't it?"_

"_For everyone," Pepper replied, returned the embrace with her right arm around his midsection, and then pulled away when the rest of the team joined in._

"_Alright, everyone," Natasha Romanoff cracked the bones in her neck. "It's time to start."_

xxxXXXxxx

He sat on the edge of her side of the bed. Silent. Still. His eyes aimed towards the floor. His mind replayed, repeatedly, the simple message she had left behind for him to find:

_I'm sorry. I love you. More than I love myself – so I took part of you with me, for luck. _

_Pepper._

He fiercely rubbed his face with his hands, snarled loudly in frustration, and then shifted his head towards the right to stare at the nightstand. Her pinwheel necklace was still there, both mocking and talking to him, reminding him of the woman that used to wear it around her neck, rather often.

Until last night.

It was now clear to him why she had taken his dog tags with her – she had wanted to have a part of him, as she had called it, with her during her trek. Something she could hold on to and use, physically so, to remind her who she was fighting this fight for – who would be waiting for her in the end. She had just wanted to have something of his on her – something he treasured as much as she treasured him.

Tony laughed bitterly at the irony of the situation. If only she knew, if only she _realized_, that she actually took_ all_ of him with her.

_She didn't say goodbye._

Was that not, however, what he had already intended to do, anyway? Was the use of the word _goodbye_ not something he had been trying to avoid himself?

In the end, he had gotten his wish. Problem was: it had not been on his terms.

"Damn you, Pep," he shook his head, gulped, and then grabbed the necklace. He placed its chain between his fingers to let the pendant dangle; his eyes lost in the shiny reflection of the diamonds it was made of. With his free hand, he held the pendant, took it to his lips, placed a quick kiss on it, and then hung the piece of jewelry around his neck.

"I love you too, Pepper," he breathed, his right hand clutching onto the pendant. "And I'll find my way to you."

Knowing his presence was needed at the command center, Tony Stark stood up from the bed, washed up, put on clean clothes and shoes, and then headed out of the quarters, all the while his mindset shifting to one that would enable him to get his family, life, and sanity back in one piece.

Or so he dearly hoped.

xxxXXXxxx

_ The strange man was back again – the Metal Man. This time, however, he did not get too close by. He was not as scary looking as he had been at first; or maybe he was getting used to him hanging around the place – but there was still something about him that he did not like. Maybe, it was the way he appeared to glide on the floor – something no one else he knew, could do. Maybe, it was the fact that his entire body was covered in something weird, something similar to what the Nice Lady sometimes used on herself; even if, just as it was the case with the Nice Lady, he could see right through it with no issue at all. This only confused him even more: why would someone have stuff covering themselves, if anyone could see right through it?_

_ Or at least, that was what he had believed to be the case, at first. Now, after a few months, he was realizing he was the only one who could see him._

_ The first time he had seen him, he had been too young to understand any of it. He had just known something was off – wrong, and that had made him very upset. He had cried and cried. Yelled and yelled. But neither the Nice Lady nor the Man with the Blue Eyes had seemed to notice the Metal Man's presence. The Metal Man had silently stared at him many times, mostly at night, when the Nice Lady and the Man with the Blue Eyes slept, and sometimes even when the Funny Man and the Serious Man were around. Yet, no one had made any mention of him – even when he had been standing right behind either of them. He never spoke to him. To Anyone. He just stared. And stared. And as more and more time went by, he was starting to believe that maybe his presence was not as bad as it had once been. He was just scary-looking. He had not tried to do anything to him… yet… or again._

_ There WAS that one time he stuck something in his skin that made him feel sick. He had not meant to bother the Nice Lady and the Man with the Blue Eyes with how bad he had felt – itchy parts inside his body, the feeling of his nose not working properly, something trickling down from it – but he had no way of telling if the actions of the Metal Man – poking his skin with a pointy thing – had actually hurt him directly._

_ He just did not understand._

_ In fact, there were a lot of things he did not yet understand – and others he was now beginning to make sense of. For example, he did not understand why the Man with the Blue Eyes (the one who he now understood, thanks to his aura, was half of him) had disappeared for a while. He had missed him a lot, and so had the Nice Lady (who he also knew was the other half of him). But in the end, the Man with the Blue Eyes, his __**Dada**__, had come back. He also did not understand why the Nice Lady, his __**Mama**__, seemed to be gone for a lot of the time, especially when it was clear to him that she was better suited to understanding what he needed than his Dada did. Then again, he had to give his Dada some credit – he was getting better at taking care of him. He was really trying._

_ Just as he was trying right now._

"_What's going on, James? What are you looking at?"_ _he heard his Dada say. He wanted to respond, to make a noise, anything to bring the Man with the Blue Eyes' attention to the Metal Man standing by the door, but all he could do was watch. A few seconds later, the Man with the Blue Eyes did look back, but he knew he would not see what he was seeing as clear as day. No one ever did. Just him._

"_Hey, Howie, over here. It's chow time."_

_He suddenly felt scared when the Metal Man began walking towards his Daddy. The Metal Man's right arm was raised, his hand glowing, but before he could get too close to them, the Metal Man suddenly stopped. He lowered his arm, took a step back, and then disappeared as quickly as he appeared every time._

_With the Metal Man gone, he could now concentrate on the food he was being offered._

"_Then again," the Man with the Blue Eyes shook his head. "You're mine and Pep's kid. You are odd by default. Aren't you, Howie?"_

_Spitting bubbles seemed like a good enough of a response._

xxxXXXxxx

The first checkpoint for Team A was located in Calais, France; the travel time to this site, with a little bit of luck, amounted to 14 hours from their departure from Muir Island. They had been in the submarine for only four hours, but Pepper was already starting to miss everyone and everything she had left behind, so very much. She knew that as time went by, and the closer they got to Latveria, that her feelings would eventually be pushed to the back of her mind to concentrate on the task at hand. Yet, she so far had been unable to rid herself of this feeling of emptiness that had befallen her when she had kissed her slumbering inventor goodbye.

With a quick glance to her surroundings, she made sure that no one was watching her intently. Her eyes then turned to her travel backpack. Her hand dug inside of it, and from it she took out a small velvet pouch. She looked around one more time for good measure, opened and flipped upside down the pouch in her hands, and from it fell out a small piece of fabric: one of Gene Khan's handkerchiefs.

_Moments later, when she had finally stopped trembling, she slowly pulled away from him. He immediately took out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She accepted it with a thankful nod and made use of it. Once she gave it a good look and recognized the cloth, she smiled. _

"_I'm glad that you liked my Christmas present."_

_ "They're useful," he shrugged._

_ Pepper gave him a small smile and another nod as she understood what his nonchalant response truly was; Gene Khan's way of saying: __**Thank you. I love it!**_

_"And it'll be more useful to you once it's clean again. I'll wash it and I'll send it back."_

_ "No," he shook his head. "You can keep it."_

_ "Don't want my germs?" she chuckled._

_ "Don't want you to go through the trouble of sending it back to China. It's just a cloth. And I still have the other five it came with."_

_ Pepper stared at the handkerchief she had gotten engraved with his name, and what she had been told was the Chinese symbol for gratitude, and smiled._

She never actually gave it back to him. And he never asked for it either. So she had kept it as a memento of their friendship.

She unfolded the handkerchief to make sure it still contained the other keepsakes she had brought with her: a bullet from her father's longtime personal gun, James Stark's first pacifier, one of the graduation honor cords Rhodey had advocated for her to get from high school, and a_ Viva Las Vegas_ keychain that Happy had given her for her 21st birthday. Memories all of the people closest to her heart; tokens all of the people she was fighting this war for.

_And Tony_, she pressed her palm against the dog tags under her clothes once more. _For Tony._

She was not proud of what she had done to her boy genius this morning – using her aura powers to keep him from waking up when she left earlier than planned had been rather cruel, if she said so herself. But she had known, most especially after saying goodbye to her parents and friends, that she could not handle another teary farewell. Goodbyes always seemed so final. So absolute. So firmly planted around the belief of never coming back to those you loved and had left behind.

Besides, _goodbye_ was the last word she had wanted to utter to him.

She heard the submarine creak loudly and she flinched, memories of her last stay inside one of these submerged pressurized metal containers returning to her. Her feelings of dread and fear when being inside a submarine were surely gone, but she could not help the physical reactions the memories sparked in her. Gene had helped her mentally overcome her ordeal when he had been training her to heal and let go of what was keeping her from moving on with her life. Whitney had, albeit rather unexpectedly in the VTR, reinforced the fact that she was no longer petrified or even scared by the idea of a submarine and what it entailed.

However, on the same token, she understood that muscle memory was difficult to control – especially when one's body was the prime essence of a virus that thrived in remembering agents of potential hazard. Her body had learned how to correctly react to _and_ attack anything and everything that ever threatened her existence. It was going to be decades before her muscles did not instinctively spasm when reminded of situations that had once almost taken her life. It was just how this virus worked – it learned and adapted to outside stimuli. It would take her years, but she would learn to live with it; to make her peace with it and what she was. She would learn to live with the fact that her body had a mind of its own, quite literally, and that there was nothing she could do to make it stop.

If her son was alive – if her little bundle of joy still lived – she could only hope that his version of Extremis did not affect him in the same way it did her. She could only pray that his Extremis did not make him as prone to long-term trauma in his young age. She could only wish that the little boy's life had not been essentially condemned simply by being her and Tony's son.

_My Jimmy_, Pepper sniffled, her hand on the pacifier. _Mommy's coming. Mommy's gonna get you back._

xxxXXXxxx

_He was once again reduced to almost nothing but pain and rage. _

_Time after time - eternity after eternity, it seemed – the deception, the __**illusion**__, was pulled over his eyes and his mind altered enough to believe it was real: his beloved Valeria holding him in her arms, whispering his name in a voice filled with compassion, showing him the love that he received from no other… and that he would __**accept**__ from no other._

_And each time, just as he was beginning to believe that this was real, that she had really returned to him and that they could be happy together, she was torn away from him, screaming his name, while an unseen force held him back. He was prevented, over and over, from saving her; forced to watch her burn, shrieking in agony, as the explosion caused by his own error destroyed his love from head to toe. And as he was forced to watch this again and again, he could hear the wretched monstrosity that continued to inflict this fate upon him, chuckling behind it all._

_After each illusion faded, Victor von Doom was left gasping, feeling exhausted and out of breath – even though he was being held in a state where breathing was not necessary. He knew the creature was draining him. He was being slowly worn away, like a mountain range being eroded to flat plains over incalculable expanses of time by wind and rain. Thanks to the actions of Iron Man, his body had been converted into light and swallowed by the alien fiend, only to be turned back, somewhat, to his mortal form while in its festering innards. He could feel that something essential had been lessened in him since then; that he was… __**incomplete**__, somehow. _

_While in these periods of respite that occurred while the demon rested and prepared the next round of his torture and erosion, Doom more or less had free range of movement within its body. Yogthulu's inner cavities ranged from constricting, claustrophobic tombs, to massive, expansive voids that normal physics decreed were far too large to fit inside a hollowed-out planet, let alone a being that could fit inside the laboratory of Doom's castle. The abomination's belly, however, did not follow normal physics, but rather that of a quantum nightmare. _

_Instinctively, Victor von Doom knew that he was dying. He also knew that it meant nothing to anyone back home. Nobody living on Earth cared about him, he knew. Sure, his people found him to be an excellent ruler who kept their economy strong and their crime-rate lower than any other nation in the world. However, they also lived in fear of him, because he achieved these things on behalf of his people by ruling with an iron fist and punishing those who violated his laws with torture and death. As such, although he had brought them undeniable greatness and respect in the eyes of the rest of the world, the Latverians would not miss him when he was gone. And he was fine with that. Victor von Doom was not a man of greatness because he felt that he inherently deserved it, but because he earned it; because he forged his own destiny by being the smartest person to ever live, and could therefore make what he wanted happen where no one else could. _

_Because of this, Doom knew that if things continued on this way much longer, he would perish here, in the insane bowels of this atrocity of nature, his death unnoticed and unlamented. _

_However, in this moment of lucidity between periods of torture, Doom was without distraction long enough to become aware of something at last. His armor was still in place around his body, and its power reserves were still at full capacity. In this realm, inside Yogthulu itself, energy was not dissipating in the usual fashion. His body was being phased away, little by little, but the suit containing it was still intact. And the mad doctor realized that this might be his one chance. _

_Knowing that Yogthulu was currently not giving him its full focus, and that the eldritch creature still emitted its own form of energy that abided by its own set of rules, Doom swiftly programmed his armor to begin scanning the monster to identify that energy, determine its frequency and magnitude… and prepare to use every ounce of power still remaining for a final strike from within._

_He would not die here like a helpless rabbit, trapped at the bottom of a pit, left to the mercy of a prowling fox. He would throw everything he had right into the face of Fate Itself and consequences be damned. He was Doctor Doom, and he would decide his own fate. Yogthulu would learn that lesson the hard way, soon enough._

xxxXXXxxx

Everyone became still and silent the moment he set foot inside the main command center – even the multiple screens before him appeared to freeze on the spot, as ridiculous as the thought appeared to be. He did not have to look around the room to know that all eyes were on him, or that everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the second he would just flip out. He could feel their gazes burning his skin. He could sense the tension in the air. He could tell that everyone already knew what Pepper had done.

He pressed his right palm on a scanner on the main switchboard, grabbed the wireless headset that was held behind the glass case he had just unlocked, and then pushed the earpiece inside his right ear, all while remaining standing tall. He looked up to stare at the screens – the same ones that had once showed him landmarks being destroyed – and he sighed deeply through his nose.

"Widow's team is in route," he said with a steady tone of voice no one believed he would have, given the situation at hand. "We proceed as planned."

Some people opened their mouths. Some others just cleared their throats. But not one person said anything back.

No one.

Not even a displeased-looking Gene Khan dared to argue with a _ready-to-fight_ Tony _Fucking_ Stark.

xxxXXXxxx

_Boom was back._

_ And yet again, no one could tell that he was around._

_ It was driving him crazy, really, that only he could see Boom leisurely strolling around the place. That only __**he**__ could __**hear**__ Boom. Long gone was his nickname of The Metal Man from his mind, a little while ago replaced with the name: Boom. It was what the man had called himself – or something close to that. It was hard to understand him and his words. It was probably due to the fact that he appeared to have something wrong with him. His aura looked sicker and paler every time he came back._

_ Then again, the Man with the Blue Eyes' aura was also off. And now the Nice Lady's aura was starting to look weird to him too. That scared him. Very much. He liked them both. They were both very nice to him. He was part of both, he knew; he was one half of each of them together, and he also knew that this was somehow very important. He did not want anything bad to happen to them._

_ Boom suddenly disappeared, so his eyes returned to the man sitting in front of him. The man that had brought back his Mama in his arms. The man that appeared to have something special surrounding him; something to do with the shiny things on his fingers._

_ He almost jumped in his seat when a noise behind him startled him. His Dada suddenly appeared, followed by a bunch of other men, all coming from the Nice Lady's room. From his vantage point, he could not see any of them, but he could feel them. He could sense the distinct aura of each individual behind him, all six of them. He could tell they were starting to move. And he could also sense that the Nice Lady was very hurt, but asleep._

_ In the past, when his Mama had been ill or very tired, he had worried so much about her. But now, after spending such a long time around his parents, he knew that his Mama was going to be OK. She had the same things in her that he had – the things that he somehow knew would make him feel better, no matter what. He was not sure what they were, but it did not matter to him. All he cared about was that they had previously helped him get better when he had been feeling sick – and they would do the same for his Mama, too._

_ He remained quiet as his Dada and the Glowing Man spoke. He really wished he could understand the sounds they were making. His father spoke a lot to him, more than his Mama did, but only two of the sounds currently made did he recognize: Happy and Pepper. He knew __**Happy**__ was the name of that big man that sometimes came over to play with him. And __**Pepper**__ was what his Dada called his Mama._

_ Where they talking about his Mama? Why was his Dada's aura so sad-looking? Was he worried about his mother? Did he not know she was going to be fine?_

_ He wanted to tell him, somehow, not to worry. But before he even got the chance to call attention to himself, he remembered that Boom was still there – and he realized that the Metal Man had begun walking around yet again._

_ He watched him as he made his way towards the Glowing Man, which happened to be at the exact same time his aura changed from angry to anxious. For this reason, and for an instant, he wondered if the Glowing Man could see Boom. Yet, he soon came to the conclusion that he could not when the Glowing Man's eyes were everywhere but on Boom. He pulled his bottle from his mouth, prepared to let the other two men know Boom was near in whatever way he could, but the Metal Man dissipated before he could do so._

_ Oh, well. He would have to try another day. Boom was always around, anyway._

_ "So," Gene began. "You're not going to tell Pepper you're going to hang around with your ex-fiancée?"_

_ There it was again. His Mama's name. Maybe if he said her name and smiled, they would know she was going to be alright._

_ The two men continued saying more things he did not understand, so he opted to tune them out. He was getting sleepy, anyway – it was near nappy time. If he was lucky enough, his Dada would maybe lay him next to his Mama. This way, he would make sure she healed faster by cleaning her aura up._

xxxXXXxxx

"Red! Red, come on! Wake up!"

_Wake up? _The ginger groaned._ I'm asleep?_

She blinked rapidly, her eyes quickly adjusting to the low light around her, but it took her a moment to remember where she was. She then sat up on the cot she had been lying on to keep the chilled, metal floor of the submarine from touching her skin, rubbed her face with her hands, and was then roughly pulled up to her feet by her right arm.

"We need to go, Pepper," Bobby said as he picked up her backpack and threw it at her. "We need to go NOW!"

"What? Why?" she slung her backpack over her shoulders. "What's going on? Are we in Calais already?"

"Not exactly," Bobby shook his head, grabbed the redhead's left hand in his, and began leading her to who knew where. "We're about a mile from shore, but the sub's not gonna get us there."

"Huh?" she spooked away some of her drowsiness with a light shake of her head. She had sworn that she had only closed her eyes for a second, but it appeared as if she had done much more than. "I don't understand."

"Doom just started a second round of attacks. We can't risk taking the sub to the surface. But we _do _need to get out of it, right now."

"What?" Pepper's face paled when she felt the blood rush to her feet at hearing the news. "Doom is attacking… _again_?"

"Yeah," the anger and disapproval in Iceman's voice in response to the inevitable and_ lethal_ effects of this sudden development was evident. They knew that they had accounted for mission delays and possible adjustments of their routes related to issues of limited supplies, team member injuries, or even the unfortunate luck of facing Doombots along the way. What they had not accounted for, however, what had not even crossed their minds as a possibility, was for Doom to flat out bomb the world one more time.

"I guess the bastard just couldn't wait to kill more people again," Bobby replied as he urged Pepper to pick up her pace with a tug of her hand.

"But, why? Why did he attack again? Does he know we're on our way? Is he trying to stop us?"

"I don't know. I-I don't think so. I," he shook his head. "Widow said that another army tried to walk up to Latveria to stop him. We think… we think he's sending a message for everyone else. Or he's trying to thin out the heard once more. Or maybe both. I don't fucking know. He… he's just… _mad_!"

Pepper briefly closed her eyes, silently prayed that no one else she knew and loved died during this second round of bombings, and then stopped suddenly when she felt herself hit Bobby's back. She opened her eyes, realized that Widow, Maya and Nightcrawler were now joining them, and then frowned when she saw Natasha beginning to climb the ladder to the top of the submarine.

"What are we doing?" Pepper asked. She hated being left in the dark.

"We're getting out of here," Maya replied, in a tone that showed she was not thrilled with the situation either, yet she still shadowed Natasha's steps, shortly after adjusting the straps of her backpack. "The sub needs to turn back."

Pepper stared down at herself and the normal clothes she wore, looked up to eye her teammates' similar wardrobe, and then huffed a disgruntled sigh while she allowed Bobby to set her on the path to be the third one in line to climb up the ladder.

"I'm right behind you, Red," Iceman said before he looked behind himself to make sure Kurt was joining their small parade towards the escape latch of the submarine. "But don't go too far, OK?"

_Oh, brother_, the ginger thought with disdain, not at all looking forward to swimming in the freezing waters of the North Sea, in nothing but regular attire.

xxxXXXxxx

_He rarely saw his Dada being this upset – or as utterly mad as he now was, but it was never a pretty sight to see. It actually kind of scared him a little when it did happen, but it was not as bad as when his Mama got mad. When his father got angry, his aura spiked, changed into many different colors, and it spread all over the place. When his mother got angry, though, she was almost a completely different person altogether. It was as if the Nice Lady was replaced by someone else – someone he did not know. In essence, he knew it was still his Mama and that she would not hurt him. Aura-wise, however, she turned cold, hollow and dark._

_ In other words: her aura looked like Boom's on a good day._

_ "Tony, don't–"_

"_Are you kidding me?" the inventor spat and interrupted the ginger's plea. "Are you fucking kidding me?"_

"_Tony," Pepper said softly but firmly. "Please, watch your language."_

"_But, Pepper!" he crushed the patch in his hand. "Why the hell does this asshole think it's even appropriate to send ANYTHING to my son?"_

"_Tony, I know you're upset but…"_

"_NO!" he said and began crumpling the costume back in the box._

"_How dare he? HOW THE HELL DARE HE? I'm going to go to the Helicarrier and shove this box up his motherfucking ass!"_

"_TONY!"_

"_ONY!"_

_He did not immediately realize the sound had come out of him. But once it did, he licked his lips, raised his finger towards his Dada, and said the word one more time; just in case they had not known the first time that it was he who had said it._

"_Ony."_

_Immediately after saying the word again, both his Mama and Dada's auras calmed down._

"_Honey, did you say something?"_

_He could not help to smile back at his more-than-pleased Mama. She was so happy. He could see it all over her. And so was his father, even if he had not moved from where he stood._

"_Tony."_

_His father did not move despite his mother's call, so he shifted his eyes to stare at him. Maybe, if he smiled and stared long and hard enough, Ony would realize that the Nice Lady was calling his name. When a long moment passed and nothing changed, he realized that he was not going to get anything else out of saying the name again for now. In turn, he returned his attention to his empty bowl. He was still hungry, after all. He wanted more food._

"_Are you still hungry, baby?" Pepper asked and lifted her son from the high-chair. "Do you want some more food?"_

_Food. Another word he recognized and liked._

_Before he knew it, he was near his parents again. However, he was nowhere near being fed once more. His belly ached. It even rumbled a little. He was still very hungry. But he also recognized that his Dada was a little bit upset again. Not as much as he had been before – not nearly close to it, actually – but still a tad off. Maybe it was not the best time to ask for food again… or maybe it was about time he did something for himself._

_He eyed the unopened jar of food near him on the counter and smacked his lips in anticipation. He recognized the color and smell of it: it was his favorite one. He did not see the other colorful items that his Dada used to get it out of the tiny bottle, but he was too hungry to worry about where they were and if he would even need them at all._

_He stared at the distracted-looking Happy across the room, then at his equally-distracted parents, and he almost scrunched his nose with a pout. When he realized they were all too busy to help him, he reached over to grab the jar, twisted the top of it like he had seen his parents do before, and it easily came off. _

_He smiled wide at his accomplishment as he pulled the jar to his face._

"_Tony… look…"_

_If he kept at it, and if he could somehow reach the place where the food was kept, he would be feeding himself in no time. He would never have to bug his parents about it again. He would just grab what he wanted, when he wanted it._

"_Jimmy."_

_He looked up to stare at his Mama when he heard his name being called. For a second, he thought she was mad at him for what he had done. Yet, a quick view of her aura told him otherwise. She was not mad at him, but she was not too happy, either. Actually, she was confused – and a little bit scared, too. In fact, now that he stared at his father, his aura showed the same feelings to be in him. Had he done something wrong?_

_He did not get an opportunity to dwell on it for long, either, as Happy was suddenly lifting him in the air, a wide smile on his face. The Funny Man seemed thrilled at what he had done, so maybe it was not all that bad._

"_It means," Happy began, "That we get to dress him as the Hulk!"_

xxxXXXxxx

Tony Stark was the only person currently inhabiting the cafeteria – not even the cooks were up this early, and they were known for having breakfast ready for everyone by 5:30 AM. For Tony, however, breakfast today consisted of a steaming cup of coffee, sitting on the table with him (and still filled to the brim), and a butter croissant that had not even been touched, other than to be moved from the food-to-go pantry area of the cafeteria to a paper plate.

His fingers absentmindedly played with the pinwheel necklace in his hands. His eyes, almost unblinking, showed how far away his mind was from this place – from this reality. Bad news upon even more bad news made it easy for anyone to just want to check out from the real world, even if just for a few minutes out of the day, no matter how much their full attention was needed around here; no matter how much his leadership and orders were the only two things holding together this crumbling operation.

The second round of missile strikes around the globe had been a hard hit to his careful planning; to his methodical preparation efforts. Not twenty-four hours after Pepper's team had left the island, their intel had been drastically shot to fuck by Doom's unexpected second attack. Proper and timely communication was already difficult to execute after just one single bout of global destruction tactics on the tyrant's behalf. After a second, or perhaps even a third… there just was no telling what it would do for their plans.

_Well_, the genius thought bitterly with a frown. _They're ruined. That's for sure._

His natural instinct as a hero, and as a strategist, yelled at him not to continue wasting any more precious time; to simply adjust his plans accordingly already. It told him that not all was lost in this war – that a second attack was merely a minor setback in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps, it could even be a blessing in disguise, seeing as the more Doctor Doom used up his resources, the fewer he would have available once they kicked down his door. His mind told him that there was _still _a way to win this – to stop, if not revert, the damage that had already been done. But his heart, which he had listened to more often than his mind nowadays, told him otherwise.

It told him the complete opposite, in fact.

"That's a beautiful necklace you've got there, Tony."

He grimaced even further at hearing her voice. _She_ was definitely the last person he had wanted to see so early in the morning or at all, even if he knew there was very little chance of avoiding her today, seeing as her team was set to leave today, in a couple of hours or so. It was not just that he could not bring himself to forgive her for everything she had done thus far – it was also the fact that acknowledging Team B's imminent departure reminded him of the unknown whereabouts of Team A.

He quickly threw the necklace around his neck, hid its pendant behind his shirt, and then looked up to lock eyes with her soft yet knowing ones.

"Is it Pepper's?"

Tony opened his mouth to provide a snarky retort, but instead opted to simply looking away from her and towards the door he wanted to bolt towards, right about now. He heard her sigh in obvious disappointment of his dismissive actions, and then had to fight the urge to flip the table against her side when she sat on the other end of it.

"I'm sure she's fine. I'm sure they_ all_ are."

Tony took an angry bite from his croissant, even if he did not feel the least bit hungry at the moment, if only to just show her without words that he was not keen on having a conversation with her. The silent warning, however, appeared to fall on deaf ears when she made herself even more comfortable where she sat and proceeded to speak.

"Iceman takes his job very seriously. He won't let anything bad happen to her. He'd rather kill the rest of his team than failing at his mission, remember?"

Tony brushed his tongue against his teeth to remove the particles of half-chewed bread from them before he washed them down with a large sip of his caffeinated drink. He then eyed the door once more, spared the woman before him a glance, and then cleared his throat before finally speaking to her.

"The fuck you want?"

"Are you ever _not_ gonna greet me with insults?"

"Probably not," he deadpanned with a glare.

"We used to be friends, you know?"

"_Used to_, being the keywords."

"We dated, too."

"We all make mistakes."

"Dating you wasn't a mistake, Tony."

"Maybe not to you."

"And sending Pepper's team first is also not a mistake. Stop berating yourself over it. You made the right choice by not altering the plans they're already familiar with. Her team can handle a few bombs. We'll hear from them soon, you'll see."

Tony narrowed his eyes at her, took another large bite of the croissant, and then chewed on it as he pointed an accusing finger towards the blonde.

"You being here _is_ a mistake," he said between sloppy bites. "Pepper should've _never_ asked Gene to get you out of The Void. You _deserved_ to _rot_ in there."

His words were meant to hurt her – to leave her speechless and full of hatred towards him. His harsh response had been intended to force her to leave him alone with his more-than-depressing thoughts. Or at the very least to finally get it through her head that he had no intention of becoming friends with her, ever again, in his entire life. Nonetheless, Whitney's eyes did not show a hint of pain, anger, or even regret for her presence here with him. Instead, and to the man's surprise, a small smile appeared on her lips.

"Speaking with your mouth full is such a Pepper thing to do," she chuckled, unable to keep to herself her amusement at witnessing how much of the redhead's antics had rubbed off on the inventor over the years.

"What?" Tony swallowed down the bite he still had in his mouth, sipped on his coffee one more time, and then leaned forward and closer to her. "What did you just say?"

"Nothing," she shook her head and looked away.

Tony glared at her for another short instant before he sighed loudly, finished eating his croissant, chugged down the rest of the coffee in his hand, and then pulled away from her. He rested his back and extended arms on the back of the booth they were both sitting in, looked towards the still empty kitchen, and then sighed one more time. For her part, Whitney Stane alternated between staring at Tony's pensive form and at her wristwatch. She had gotten up early today to get ready for the traveling they would begin shortly; finding Tony in the cafeteria had not been part of her morning plan. However, since nearly four days had passed since they had last heard from Team A, she knew that the blue-eyed boy needed some comfort – whether he admitted to it or not.

Silence was the only sound between them until rushed steps coming from the entrance of the cafeteria made them both snap their heads towards it. In a matter of seconds, Arthur Parks and Rhodey stood before them – and neither of them looked to be bringing in good news.

"We might need to leave a little earlier than expected," Rhodey said after sparing the blonde a quick, questioning look, undoubtedly wondering what she was doing in the presence of Tony Stark. He had warned her not to bother his family, not long ago, but it appeared to him as if the woman needed a second reminder of this fact.

"How earlier?" she asked.

"Now," Arthur replied as he caught his breath with loud gasps. "I just got back from the Paris checkpoint… or tried to…"

"Tried to?" Tony furrowed his brow. "What do you mean: _tried to_?"

"I couldn't get to it," Arthur's eyes lowered to the ground, as if the sudden turn of events were his fault.

"Why?" Tony's eyes shifted back and forth from staring at the Living Laser and at Agent Rhodes. "Why couldn't you do it? The power out?"

"No," Rhodey replied when it was clear to him that Arthur was not ready to relay the news.

"Then, what?" Whitney asked, her impatient tone of voice only reflecting Tony's current feelings and thoughts.

"Was the safe house compromised?" Tony asked, hoping against hope that this was the only issue at hand. There were other checkpoints that Team A could use to transmit their current status to the island once they got to them – their next one being in the city of Bern, Switzerland. Missing one safe house was not, no pun intended, the end of the world for them. At least not yet.

Unfortunately for Tony, this setback entailed much more than that.

"No," Arthur swallowed hard as he finally lifted his head to stare at Tony in the eye. "There was… there-there was no safe house left."

"W-What?" Tony slid out from the booth. "What do you… what?"

"Was it attacked?" Whitney stood up in her seat, her bent right knee holding her up.

Rhodey and Arthur exchanged wary looks before they both stared at Tony and then at the floor.

"Rhodey!" Tony grabbed his friend by his arms. "Tell me what happened! What happened to the safe house?"

"Same thing that happened to the city…" Rhodey began, "To everything within a thirty-mile radius of it. It… it's all… the city… Paris… Tony… Paris is gone."

xxxXXXxxx

_He opened his eyes when he once again felt Boom's presence in his room. As it had been the case every other time, the Metal Man was standing by his crib, staring at him with those weird-colored eyes of his. He always did that to him, and he sometimes spoke to him, too. Yet, this particular time, he could tell something was different about Boom: he was beyond mad._

_Instinctively, he knew that being alone in the presence of an angry man that no one else could see or hear should have concerned him, but he was no ordinary child. He had confirmed this many times now, ever since he had become more aware of himself and his surroundings; most especially, when he had been around other tiny people like him. These other tiny people had all acted differently than him. They did not seem to know how to read people's auras, and they did not seem to have the ability to see right through solid objects, or of other things that were in the way of what he wanted to see. He could also see right through people, tiny or big, and even though he had no idea what exactly he was looking at inside of them, he now understood that what he could do was not something anyone else could do._

_Well, almost everyone, if he did not count his Mama. She had some of it, too. Not as much as he, as far as he could tell, but enough to make her special, too._

_He scrunched his nose when he saw that Boom was leaving quicker than usual, and he would have not thought much of it had the Metal Man not just begun walking towards his Dada. He did not need to be out of his crib or room to see everything unfolding before him – his eyes allowed him to see anything and everything he wanted to see, no matter how far away it was. Boom had never hurt his Dada or Mama before, but none of those times had the Metal Man been this angry._

_Maybe Boom was tired of people not paying attention to him? Maybe he was tired of waiting to see if someone other than him would know he was there? What if he tried to do something scary or bad to his Dada? What if his Dada did something that made Boom even madder than he already was?_

_No. He had to do something – anything, to warn his Dada about Boom. Maybe, if Boom did not feel as alone as he knew he felt, or as sick as he could also see he was, he would be happy again. Happy was a good thing to be, he had learned in his very few months of life. Happiness made people smile, hug each other, and smash their faces against other people's faces. He did not quite get that last part, but he had learned to associate the aura of happiness in his parents with their faces smashing each other. Sometimes, in their happiness, they even smashed their mouths against his chubby cheeks, too. It felt good._

_Recalling his newfound ability, he grabbed onto the bars of his crib as hard as he could until he was able to push himself up using the dangling things attached to the bottom of his body, like he had seen all the big people do. They were still kinda wobbly, but he could feel they were definitely stronger than the last time he had used them. Perhaps if he kept doing this more often, sooner rather than later he would be able to follow his Dada all over the place. This __**was**__ the main reason why he had begun finding out what else he could do, anyway: to make his Dada smile._

_He struggled with the metal latch for a moment, his brow showing his deep concentration. His parents made it look so easy to move over the thing to open the crib, but for the life of him he could not figure it out fast enough to free himself. Boom was even closer to his father now, and he was sure that his father had no idea who was near him. He felt tiny droplets of water coming from his eyes, just as it happened to him whenever he was desperate to do something he could not do right away._

_Another minute passed of him trying to remove the latch, but nothing seemed to work. He was pushing and pulling, moving it from side to side, and even tried to squeeze it away. He knew it was not this hard, and he also knew that, if he had more time, he could do it. However, he could also feel his legs getting tired. If he did not do it soon, he would not be able to do it at all._

_In a last moment of desperation, and as he was about to fall on his butt, a final struggle resulted in the latch not only opening, but being removed completely. He pouted a little bit when he hit his bed – his finger had gotten caught in the rail when the front of the crib had slid down and he had hurt himself. But he had no time to waste crying over it. The pain was already going away, anyway. And his Dada needed him._

_He clumsily rolled himself out of the crib and onto the ground, dragged his body on the floor for a few inches, and was then suddenly picked up in the air, metal latch still in his hand. He blinked several times as his face was pulled closer to Boom's, waited for him to do or say anything else, but he simply continued to stare and stare. They must have been there for a long time – long enough for him to fall asleep for a little bit, as the next time he opened his eyes, he was in the room where his Dada kept his toys._

_His Dada's toys were weird. They were not colorful like his, and they did not move or make sounds. They were actually kind of boring to him, but his Dada seemed to love being there and bringing him with him. Sometimes, while they were both in here, his Dada would talk to him, point to his toys and say what he assumed were his toys' names. He could not say the words himself, but he did remember some of the things his father had said to him: 'soolyver,' 'amer' and 'sku.'_

"_**Howie!"**_

_His father calling his name from afar made him forget about the weird toys. He followed the Man with the Blue Eyes' movements around the place until he finally stood by the door of the room he was in. He was wearing that weird thing he sometimes used over his eye – he looked very funny using it. It always made him want to laugh._

"_Howie, you scared the __**crap**__ out of me."_

_When his Dada did not move from where he stood, and after looking down at his legs, a thought came to him. What if his father was waiting for him to go to him? What if his legs could do more than just hold him up for a little while? He did recall his Dada trying to bend his dangly things a few days ago, before he had sort of dragged him smoothly along the floor for a little bit. Maybe this was what he was supposed to do right now. Maybe Boom knew this to be the case. Maybe he had tried to help him to do just that, a little while ago._

_One thing led to another, and before he knew what he was doing, he found himself smiling when he saw his Dada's face. It hurt a little bit, to bend his legs like this, but seeing his father's worried aura turn happy again was worth it. He could not help but giggle at the thought of making his Dada proud._

"_Come on, Howie!" Tony continued his praise. "You're almost here. Keep going."_

_And he wanted to. He truly wanted to finish his crawl. Nevertheless, he could not do so any longer: Boom was now in the way._

_And he looked very, very, __very __mad._

_Not knowing what else to do, and realizing his father was beginning to grow anxious for some reason, he did the only thing he could think to do: he sat on the floor, looked up, and extended his arms towards Boom. Maybe, if his Dada saw him being picked up from the floor by Boom, he would finally understand what was happening around the house. Maybe, if his father knew that Boom needed help, his Dada would make Boom's anger go away, at last._

_Unfortunately, Boom did not move; he just disappeared from view again. Fortunately, he did not have to force his legs to move anymore – his father was now picking him up._

"_What were you staring at, Howie?" Tony asked his son. "You scared your dad. Don't do that again, OK?"_

_Feeling safe in his father's arms, he focused on smiling and laughing at whatever his father was saying to him. They then went to his room, stood there for a little bit, and then his father said something else, using a word he knew how to pronounce._

"_Pi," James repeated with glee and made Tony stop his walk towards the nursery door. "Pi!"_

_ "Pi?" Tony repeated himself and then smiled when he realized what his son was trying to convey. "Yes, Happy. That big, weird dude that hangs around here sometimes. Happy."_

_His father took them to the large room in the home; the one that had a view of other things outside the place they were in, just before everything went dark. There were now some random lights shining outside their place, and a lot of water seemed to be coming down from the sky. His father was quiet and still, yet he appeared to be on high alert, that weird thing still covering his eye. He opened his mouth to call his father's attention once more, to try to snap him out of whatever eerie feeling was quickly building within him, but he never got the chance to do so._

_Boom suddenly reappeared._

_And he was now standing behind them. _

_And this time, he knew by his father's reaction that he had finally seen the Metal Man._

_The turn of events that followed made him more scared than he had ever been in his entire short life. His father was angry, frightened, confused, and now had on one of his toys around his right arm. The entire experience was new and different for him; it was rather terrifying, in fact. But what truly shocked him, what made him want to start bawling and tug at his father's clothes, was the fact that Boom had just tried to hurt his dad._

_Tried to hurt him, too._

_Tried to do something very, very bad._

_The aggression on the Metal Man's part was so obvious, his intentions so clear in his aura, and his father's actions so startling, that he finally realized his gut instinct had been right: Boom was not looking for help, and he was not here to give help, either. Boom was here to hurt them all._

xxxXXXxxx

Reading about the devastation was one thing. Planning and training in a simulated environment to face the unthinkable: unforgiving weather, deplorable conditions, even _death_, was something else entirely. Seeing the images and short video clips of worldwide destruction was another. Yet, walking through the wrecked towns in person, seeing the terror and lost hope in the eyes of people – in the eyes of starving elderly and children – was something none of them had prepared for; something that no one ever, anywhere, would be prepared to do.

They had missed perishing in the attack on Paris, but only by a couple of hours, and only because Maya had been unable to keep walking, no matter how much she had tried. She had not been joking when she had stated that she was not fit for strenuous physical activity, yet she had kept going as long as she had, without stopping or complaining once. However, after nearly twelve hours of nonstop trekking, she had finally collapsed.

That had taken place eight hours ago, while they had still been on their way to their second safe house in Paris, France – four days into their travel plans; an entire day behind in reporting back to the island. The bombings had not seemed as much of a threat from their location in Calais, but the closer they had gotten to the inner parts of the European continent, the more the aftermath made them want to regurgitate the protein bars they had snacked on a couple of hours ago.

The capital of the peaceful country had been decimated during the second bombing, which had lasted several days in varying intensities – its magnificent buildings had already been somewhat weakened by the minimal initial attack, weeks ago. This time, however, the madman had not been so merciful with the _City of Love_. In fact, he had been the complete opposite of merciful – he had been downright cruel. Paris, France, the charming city, host of the well-known Eiffel Tower and numerous other world-famous landmarks, had vanished into a cloud of smoke and ash.

And everyone inside had perished along with it.

_How many more people are going to die?_

Pepper's grim thoughts were interrupted when she heard Bobby and Natasha, both walking ahead of her, arguing in barely hushed tones for the nth time since they had realized the safe house in Paris was gone. Part of their stop there was to ensure they let Tony and the others know they had made it alright – something they would later on confirm when they made it to Switzerland. The other reason for the existence of the safe houses, however, was to replenish their supplies.

"I wish they'd stop arguing," Nightcrawler whispered to the redhead, his pace slow to match hers and Maya's. "People are starting to stare."

Pepper raised her head, glanced around them to confirm the man's fears, and then fast-walked towards the bickering Iceman and Black Widow. Kurt was absolutely right: the citizens of the small town of Mareil-sur-Mauldre were indeed starting to glare at the group of five – and that was without Nightcrawler looking like he normally did. Tony had built him a bracelet that emulated the abilities of the Madame Masque mask, allowing for him to blend in with the crowd when needed. Ideally, the inventor would have preferred for everyone to wear this type of bracelet to disguise their true identities. Yet, with the short amount of time allotted to them and due to limited supplies, he had only been able to build these bracelets for Nightcrawler and Beast.

"Shut it, you two," the ginger snarled as soon as she reached the troublesome duo. "You're gonna give us away."

"You think?" Iceman rolled his eyes and scoffed mockingly, although his annoyance was not with the redhead he had been tasked with protecting, but the older one, instead. "Just being here is a bad idea! This is a small town! Everyone knows everyone! We're sticking out like sore thumbs. We should've stuck to the road until we reached another major city. This is a stupid mistake."

"Not as stupid as hoping we don't starve to death on the way to Bern. Especially now that we had to alter our path!" Widow retorted. "It was either this or running out of food and water in three days!"

"Water comes from rivers, the sky, and my fucking melting hands, Natasha," Bobby snapped. "And food is all around us. We could've gone deeper into the wild and hunted."

"With what? Our bare hands? We're traveling with the minimum amount of weapons, Bobby! We need to safeguard what we have!"

"The fuck?" Bobby's head recoiled. "You're a master assassin. Red here can see auras. I can freeze stuff until we can cook it. Kurt can sneak up on prey, and Maya…" Bobby looked over his shoulder to eye the brunette, snapped open and close his mouth a few times, and then returned his attention to the angry leader of the group. "Maya can clean up the dishes after us."

"I _heard_ that," Maya groaned.

"I said it loudly, didn't I?" the X-Man replied.

"Seriously, you guys," Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose with her right hand. "Just put a lid on it! Let's just cross this town as quickly as possible and then do what Bobby says."

"You're on his side? Are you crazy, Pepper?" Natasha snapped.

"No. I'm not. I'm actually saner than you are right now," Pepper shook her head. "Have you taken a look at these people? They barely have enough for themselves. We can't just take stuff from them! They'll starve!"

"_Everyone_ will starve if we don't get you to Latveria," Widow suddenly stopped her pace to face the redhead. "Think about the big picture, Pepper!"

"I am! Me getting to Latveria is not seeing the 'big picture'! You're just thinking about me."

"Of course I am, because yes, it is 'the big picture'! We need to make sure that at least you make it there. Doom can't control you, remember?"

"And lowering my daily calorie intake for a few days won't hurt me."

"It will weaken you."

"No, it won't."

"Yes, it will!" Natasha could barely keep her voice down.

"No. It. Won't," Pepper replied. "It won't even put a dent in me, alright?"

"I'm not taking the risk, Pepper," Black Widow continued. "Besides, how can you be so sure?"

"Because after being tortured, I spent weeks in a submarine with very little food, feeling ill, poisoned, tired and with a broken leg, and I survived!"

Natasha stared at the redhead with an unreadable look on her face for a moment, looked around her to eye the increasing muttering crowd they were attracting attention from, and finally sighed in partial defeat before speaking once more.

"That was then, Pepper," her voice was merely a whisper. "We can't rely on that same luck you had back then to work again now."

"It wasn't luck, Widow," Pepper replied as softly as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. "It was Extremis. And it wasn't as strong as it is now. Unless… unless someone vaporizes me completely, or-or rips my heart out… I… I…"

"She can't die," Maya offered, knowing exactly what the redhead was trying to convey.

A bitter smile on Pepper's face was all the evidence the Black Widow needed to know she was telling the truth – and that she was not thrilled for this fact of her life to be the case. Black Widow had met and battled against evil men who had wanted nothing more but to be immortalized – to live forever and to defy the passing of time. She doubted any of them knew exactly what they were signing up for: watching your loved ones die, while you are left behind, was not something the spy wanted to experience – no matter how enticing it was to be able to live forever – or for at least a very, very long time.

"Fine," Widow sighed. "Let's just keep going. We'll camp outside for the night. And hunt, I guess."

The grateful smile on Pepper's face did not last long. It was interrupted by the sound of a fierce scuffle taking place nearby. The five members of the resistance turned around in place, their heads and bodies moving left and right until they found the source of the sounds of altercation – and found it to be an enraging sight once their eyes landed on it. Several feet away from where they stood, near a barely-standing shack, a woman and two children were being cornered against an outside wall of the failing structure by a mob of men; all of which were yelling threats at the small, scared family, while holding random items in their hands that were intended to be used as weapons.

"_Donnez-nous la nourriture! Nous savons que vous avez!_" the man at the forefront of the mob yelled as he took a step towards the frightened woman and children. In response, the petite woman pulled her children closer to her body, all three of them sitting on the bare ground.

"_Je ne l'ai pas,"_ the woman replied. _"¡Il a été détruit! Je ne l'ai pas. __¡S'il vous plait!"_

"_Menteur!_" the same man closed the distance between himself and the woman, forcibly grabbed the closest child to him, and then pulled her up by her arm. The little girl winced with the move. Her eyes were already filled with tears of fear, but she held back the second round of them. However, when the tall man squeezed her arm and shook her violently to make his point against her mother, the small child could not help to whimper loudly.

"HEY!" the redhead's angry voice did not make it through to the man, so she opted to run towards the commotion instead. "HEY! STOP IT!"

"Wait, no! Pepper!" Maya's words were ignored by the ginger, leaving the rest of the group to follow Pepper's lead towards the mob. By the time they caught up with the speeding redhead, Pepper was already standing between the fallen woman and boy, her back to them, and furiously eyed the man who was still holding the dangling little girl in his arm.

"Let the girl go," Pepper narrowed her eyes at the man who could have easily been described as being twice her size – long and wide.

The man eyed the smaller woman up and down and then scrunched his nose in distaste.

"This doesn't concern you, girl," the man snarled.

"Yes, it does," Pepper replied.

"Who the hell is that?" a different man in the mob, an older man, pointed towards Pepper, his accent as thick as the man before her. "She a foreigner, isn't she? She's here to steal what we have!"

"Get out of the way, _foreigner_," the man pulled his face closer to Pepper's. "We don't like your kind around here."

"Pepper," Maya whispered as her legs tried to take a step forward, but Natasha's arm stopped her from doing so.

"Don't," Widow shook her head. "If we get involved, we'll make it worse. Pepper can handle this."

"Are you sure?" Maya was not convinced.

"Widow is right," Kurt whispered back, flanking the brunette on her right. "If we show what we can do – that we're more than just passing travelers, we'll call even more attention to ourselves."

"Dammit," Maya's hands turned to fists.

"Then let the girl go and we'll be out of your hair," Bobby added, his pose similar to Pepper's as he now stood by her side.

The man scoffed and shook the child once more, clearly only to further irritate the redhead and the younger man next to her.

"This little boy thinks he can take a man," he said over his shoulder to incite a mocking response from the mob behind him. He then returned his attention to Bobby and eyed him up and down. "Your woman is trouble, you know that?"

"Yeah," Bobby smirked. "But not for me. If I were you, I'd do as she says."

"Or what?" the man cackled loudly and then dug his fingers into the girl's arm, making the child cry in pain.

"Let. Her. GO," Pepper said again, completely missing the gasp of recognition coming from the girl she was trying to help. All she could do at the moment was feeling the anger threatening to veil her self-control. She wanted to force the man to stop hurting the child. She wanted to teach this man a lesson he would never forget.

"Make me, little girl," the man replied.

"Oh, boy," Bobby said with a shake of the head.

The man quickly jerked his right arm back and then to the front, at the very last second releasing the small girl from his grip so that she would be flung towards the wall. Noticing this, Bobby sidestepped behind Pepper to catch the child while still in the air. Seeing that Bobby was now tending to the little girl, the man's left hand circled Pepper's neck and lifted her, squeezing it hard enough to know that it would hurt her, but not tight enough to kill her.

His victory was short-lived; however, as Pepper's physical response took place a tenth of a second after she felt the man's hand on herself. She placed both of her hands on the man's forearm to use as a pulley, used her feet to pad her way up the man's front, and then kicked him square in the face with her left foot, her right foot pressed against his chest to increase her purchase. She then curled up in the air when she felt the hold on her loosen a bit, but only to then use her legs to push the man back while her hands pulled him to the front, effectively dislocating the man's arm.

She never hit the ground, as by the time her maneuver was complete and she was dropped from the man's grasp, Bobby was already behind her, catching her in his arms before she fell down.

"Mandarin taught you that, didn't he?" Bobby carefully set her feet on the ground while furtively stealing a glance at her to make sure she was alright.

"Yup," Pepper straightened her clothes.

"Aren't you supposed to set it right back?" Bobby tilted his head to the right, his eyes focused on the other men trying to help their leader stand up.

"He doesn't deserve it," Pepper replied before she turned around and ran towards the small family behind her, kneeling before them with a kind smile on her face. "Are you alright?"

The woman did not dare to speak but nodded sharply. Pepper's eyes then stared at the boy and the girl, the latter of which had a hopeful look on her features.

"Where do you live?" Pepper offered the mother a hand to assist her in standing up.

"Right," the woman swallowed hard. "Right here," she pointed behind her and towards the crumbling shack.

Pepper stared at the place briefly, wondering how much longer the small home would remain standing, but her thoughts dissipated when she felt a little hand pull on her pants. She looked down to stare at the wide-eyed child beaming at her, and she could not help but to smile back.

"Are you OK now?" Pepper asked and the little girl nodded enthusiastically.

"What did they want?" Bobby's voice suddenly resounded behind Pepper, making the redhead look back to see the mob starting to disperse.

"Food," Kurt replied for the woman, having understood every single word spoken before them. "They said she had food."

"Do you?" Bobby asked, for an instant wondering if they had aided the wrong people.

The woman looked nervous for a moment, her eyes looking past the group of five before her and towards the scattering people who were now finally starting to mind their own business. When she felt confident enough that the crowd was no longer paying attention to them, she whispered her response.

"Not really," she stared at the ginger before looking down at her children. "Can you help?"

"I," Pepper suddenly felt stupid for jumping in to stop the abuse taking place. It was not that she did not want to further assist the woman, or the entire town, in fact. But she knew that she did not have much to offer herself. "I don't know. We… we don't have many supplies either."

Pepper expected the woman to look disappointed at hearing her words – perhaps even for her hopes to visibly shatter. Nevertheless, the response the woman gave her was the complete opposite of that.

"Come," the woman waved her hand towards them as she began walking towards the entrance of the home, her children in tow. "Please, come."

The five members of Team A eyed one another, silently conversing and deciding what to do. The night was a couple of hours away from falling and they needed to leave the town to set camp. However, when the little girl ran back to Pepper and grabbed her hand in both her tiny ones, the redhead was unable to decline the invitation the woman had just made to them.

"Just for a little while," Pepper told Widow, the ginger's eyes filled with hope that her team leader would once more give in to her wishes.

"Alright," Widow reluctantly replied. "But we leave as soon as possible."

"OK!" Pepper said with a smile before she was pulled by the child inside the shack, the other four members of her team following closely behind.

xxxXXXxxx

_Just when he thought that he knew and understood everything about the world, something new came up. This time, it was the fact that he had been taken away from his Mama and Dada, against his will. He had cried, yelled, and kicked as hard as he had been able to, but Bro had still taken him away from his home. It was not that he did not trust Bro, or that he did not like him – he actually did, very much. But now that he knew that Boom was trouble, he did not want to be away from his parents. What if Boom did something to them while he was gone?_

_ Then again, he was more helpless that he had thought himself to be. Yes, he could see everything and anything – things no one else was able to see. But that had not helped him or his Dada when Boom had tried to hurt them, days ago. The only thing his eyes had allowed him to see was the look on his father's face: a look of utter fear; of powerlessness. A look that had matched his aura, which had been filled with panic, anger, confusion and concern for his wellbeing._

_ His Dada had not been afraid to die himself. But he had been afraid for what could happen to his little boy._

_ His Mama had not been any better when she had finally come home to find them on the ground. It had taken her a long time to ease his Dada's fears, but she had somewhat done so, in the end. The next morning, he had thought that everything was fine again. That now that his Dada had finally seen Boom, that he would tell his Mama and they would be ready for him when he came back. However, a few days after that, and after Boom had scared his Mama while in the shower, Bro had shown up to take him away. _

_ And now, here he was: far away from his parents, in a room that had tiny aura specks of his Dada and Mama all around it. His parents must have spent a lot of time in this place before, but that did not bring him comfort at all. Nor did the fact that he had seen them again the other day, in that large flying thing in the air. He had been surprised to see pictures of many scary-looking people on the wall in one of the rooms they had been in… and one of those pictures had been of Boom. But he had been even more surprised to have seen his Dada look right at the picture of Boom without reaction. Even his Mama had seen it, and she had pointed to it and some of the others that were close to Boom's, but she had not batted an eye. Was it possible that, even after all that had happened, his parents still did not see what was right in front of them?_

_ In his desperation to bring attention to Boom's image, he had loudly stated everyone's name: Bep, Bro, Pi, Ony, and then Boom. He had even tried pointing at Boom's picture over his Dada's shoulder when he held him. Yet, it changed nothing for any of them at all. Eventually, he had been taken away from his Mama's arms once more, by a lady with an aura as kind as his mother's. He had felt safe with her, albeit only briefly, until another woman, a woman he felt he had seen before, showed up. His Dada and Mama had not been around when this other woman had held him and had poked him with something that hurt him – something similar to what Boom had used on him a long time ago; the thing that had previously made him feel sick. He had half expected to start sneezing again, to feel as yucky as he had felt once before, but nothing changed. He did not feel any different. And the small prickle on his arm had not even hurt that much._

_ At least not until now… not until the same woman had shown up again, hiding behind the same thing that Boom used to go undetected._

_ He watched her as she leaned down inside his crib to rub his fists, her eyes shiny and her lips trembling. Whatever she was doing right now, it was clear to him that she did not want to do it. Her aura was highly conflicted; a mix of regret, sadness, and only a tiny bit of resolve, which made it difficult for him to find the strength and will to yell Bro's name. He just stared at her eyes, red and wet, as she took out another pointy-looking thing from her bag and aimed it towards his neck._

_ "I'm sorry," he heard her say, her left hand briefly rubbing her face. "I'm so sorry, James."_

_ The hand that held the pointy thing shook, stopping only inches from his neck. For a second, he thought that the lady was not going to hurt him after all when she took forever to make a move. However, when a muffled sound came from the hall outside the door of the room he was in, the brown-haired lady was scared into sticking the pointy thing into him._

_ The pain lasted only for a second; and her blue eyes were the last thing he saw before his eyes suddenly closed, for a long, long, long time._

xxxXXXxxx

The inside of the small house showed that it had once been a rather cozy, lively, and homey place to be in. Yet, as it was the case with everything else that had been affected by Doom's attacks, it was now nothing more than a rotting wooden structure, barely standing amidst the chaos that existed all around it, yet still somehow holding up picture frames from its precariously slanting walls. Her hazel eyes focused on a few of the pictures, all showing smiling images of the woman, her two children, and of a man that Pepper assumed was the father of the little boy and girl. However, it was clear as day to her that said man was not currently around.

"My husband," the woman began as she lit up a small candle to bring some light to the large, dark room, noticing where Pepper's eyes had immediately landed as soon as they had all walked inside. "He's a farmer."

"Is that why people think that you have food?" Maya asked, sighing in relief when she found a somewhat stable chair to sit in.

"Yes," the woman replied before she added: "My name is Olivie. This is my son, Rafael, and my daughter, Zoe."

"I'm–" the redhead hesitated, now suddenly remembering that Pepper Potts was supposed to be dead. "Patricia."

"Rescue," the little girl suddenly said, her hands clutched under her chin. "Rescue!"

"Uhm," Pepper's eyes darted towards Widow, who shook her head disappointedly at her. She then looked at Bobby, his lazy shrug not aiding her in coming up with a believable retort.

"My daughter looks up to you. I… I didn't recognize you at first, even though you looked familiar to me. But my Zoe," the woman smiled at the child. "She would recognize you anywhere."

Pepper bit her lower lip as she stared at the child once more, watching her as her skinny legs led her towards a drawer to open it up, take out a picture from it, and then run towards the redhead, waving the printout in her hand.

"What do you have there?" Pepper asked, gently grabbing the picture from the girl, and then held back a gasp. It was a picture she had thought she had lost – or that Tony had lost during his many business travels. It showed her, her right index and middle finger forming a slanted "V," her right eye winking at the camera, proudly displaying her first successful batch of homemade pancakes. She had taken this picture herself to digitally send it to her father while he had been in Afghanistan after he had stated that he did not believe she had learned how to cook. Tony had liked the picture so much, that he had printed a copy of it so that he could carry it around in his travel bag.

_He told me he didn't know where it was!_ Pepper thought, a small knowing smirk on her face.

"Your husband, he gave that to Zoe before he left."

"Tony?" Pepper returned the picture to the girl and then stared at Olivie. "Tony was here?"

"Yes. A long time ago."

"Oh," Pepper's shoulders deflated almost instantly, hitting herself mentally for thinking that Tony could be nearby.

"Is he…" Olivie gulped. "Is he also alive, Mrs. Stark?"

"Yes," Pepper sighed. "Not here. But he is."

"Pepper," Widow's warning tone told the ginger that she was revealing more than necessary to this strange woman in this desolated land. It was already bad enough that their path had changed, that their safe house had been blown up, that they were running low on supplies, and that they had barely avoided a risky fight. The last thing they needed now was for a spreading rumor of Pepper Potts and Tony Stark being alive to run rampant on the European mainland.

"Please," Pepper locked eyes with Olivie. "Please don't tell anyone."

"Are you hiding from the Doctor Doom?"

"For now," Pepper admitted.

"Are you on your way to stop him?"

"Yes."

"Then you need my help," Olivie replied. "I can help you… if you can help me first."

"What do you mean?" Pepper inquired, for a moment wondering the true intentions of the woman.

"Your husband, he said you're as smart as him."

"Uhm, well," Pepper chuckled nervously, her fingers scratching the back of her neck, Tony's exaggerated bragging about her abilities to strangers flattering her into embarrassment even now. "I-I… I don't know about that."

"Come, please," Olivie urged her. "There's something you must see."

Before Olivie could hold Pepper's hand, Bobby swiftly moved from his apparently relaxed position by the door, to stand between Pepper and the woman, his distrusting eyes glaring at her. Olivie flinched, unsure of what she had done to cause such a reaction from the man that had just saved her daughter, so she lifted her hands in the air.

"I will not hurt her, Mister," Olivie assured him. "You can come to. You'll see."

"Bobby," Pepper rested her right hand on his shoulder. "It's OK."

Iceman stared at Pepper behind him, and then at Olivie in front of him, before he waved his arm at the woman in a way that was clear that he was encouraging her to lead the way. He remained between her and the redhead, however, everyone else trailing behind Pepper as they walked through a door and down a flight of stairs that led to a basement. Just as before, Olivie lit up a candle to provide some light inside the underground room, and Pepper gasped in surprised at what she saw.

The left side of the room was filled to the brim with boxes stamped with the Stark Solutions logo, while the right side of the room held a few crates with corn, bread, water, and other supplies. Nevertheless, what caught her attention the most – what made her run towards the middle of the room, was the device sitting on a table. She placed her hands on it, smiled briefly when she confirmed her suspicions of what the machine was, but then narrowed her eyes before she stared accusingly at Olivie.

"You _do_ have food," Pepper began, her right hand pointing towards the boxes to the left of the room. "You have enough raw materials to feed this entire town for a year!"

"I do. I know," the woman acknowledged. "But I can't tell them that. Not yet. You saw what they tried to do to me and my children. If they came here, they would only make matters worse."

"Why? How?"

"Uhm, what's going on?" Maya stared at Kurt, who simply shrugged in response.

"It's broken. It stopped working when the first attack hit the capital and the power went out," Olivie said. "My husband tried to repair it. But we couldn't figure it out. And we… we couldn't call in an order for Stark Solutions to come fix it because…"

"Because communications are down," Pepper's head hung. "And because Stark Solutions' headquarters is gone."

Olivie silently nodded.

"What is this again?" Bobby walked up to the machine, looked at it from different angles, and then turned his attention to the redhead.

"It's an _Intelli-crops_ generator," Pepper replied. "This," she pointed to the boxes, "Gets poured into the machine. The machine gathers information from the outside – weather patterns, humidity levels… tons of things. Then, using that data and the raw materials in it, it creates the perfect hybrid seed that can grow the fastest in these conditions. It cuts down watering costs, reduces growth time, and it increases in tenfold the yield of the crop. It's one of Tony's designs. This is one of the very first models of it."

"Your husband saved our lives with it," Olivie smiled. "Years ago, we could not grow much here. But he came by. He gave us the machine for free. He just asked that we cared for it. That we did not let it be abused. That we used it only for its purpose: grow food. I don't know what these men can do with the machine. If they find it to be broken, they may hurt my family. They may misuse the machine. I cannot let this happen. But, if it's fixed, maybe the men won't hurt anyone. And maybe I can help feed everyone until help arrives."

_Until help arrives_, the woman's words echoed in Pepper's head. _They _were the help. They _had_ arrived. But there was not much they could do for now. Then again, now that Paris was nothing but a memory, and if Doom attacked a third time, it was very likely that this town would be the next target. She could not stop the bombings, and she could not stop Doom from here, but she could at least try to feed this town for a while.

"Where's your husband?" Widow suddenly asked, not buying much into the story, despite how sincere the words sounded to her ears. "You said your husband is a farmer. Why isn't he here?"

"He left to find help to fix the machine. He thought that maybe the power supply of the machine had fried with the power outage. So he went to Paris to purchase a new one."

"Paris?" Maya asked, her eyes immediately landing on Pepper's. "He's in… Paris?"

"Yes," Olivia nodded, evident in her features that she was unaware of what had occurred to the capital. It was no surprise, really, since it was very hard for _them_ to figure out what was happening around the world, and they had Tony Stark and his tools on their side. Anyone else did not stand a chance.

"How long ago did he leave?" Pepper asked, her eyes on the smiling children watching her in awe, particularly the little girl.

"A week," Olivie replied. "He should be back soon."

Pepper's palm landed on the busted machine once more and she closed her eyes, images of the pictures she had seen on the floor above them coming to her mind. She opened her eyes when Bobby placed a hand on her lower back, his eyes asking her what she wanted to do now. It took her a moment of hesitation, but once her eyes landed on the hopeful look of her tiniest fan, she held back a choking sob.

"I can help you," Pepper eyed Olivie. "I can fix the machine. I just need some tools and time."

"Pepper," Widow's obvious disapproval was echoed by Maya, but it was Kurt's vote that ended the quarrel before it even had a chance to start.

"You're supposed to be the voice of reason," Widow gritted her teeth at the teleporter. "The reasonable thing to do is go while we can."

"Yes, it is," Kurt whispered back. "But sometimes, the reasonable thing to do, is not the _right_ thing to do."

Widow opened her mouth to complain, but when she realized that the night had already fallen, and that Pepper would not move from the location until she was satisfied with the little help she could provide, she simply shook her head, walked out of the home, and decided to keep watch from the outside.

A storm was coming. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

**A/N:** Soooo… I'm soooo sorry and apologize to my French-speaking Faithful Readers if I butchered the little French I used here. I was going to ask (bother) one my Faithful Readers who helped me before with the language (_fantasia-41_,miss ya!), but I'm not sure if she's still around here on FFNET or even reading this story. I hope I didn't do too badly of a job! Anyone enjoying the Howie-side flashbacks? How about the one with Doom? There are more to come! Credit for the Doom flashbacks, though, goes to my hubby, Teen Tyrant. If they terrify you, that's all his fault XD Don't forget to review!


	11. Chapter 10

**Guest Review Responses**

**Iron kid: Awesome chapter so far can wait to see more but plz can u update this more often plz because I want to see the ending so bad it killing me **– I AM SOOOOOOOO SORRY! I finally got a job and started last Monday (YAY), so my time is so limited right now. However, you're totally right (and so are my other Faithful Readers who have told me to _GET ON FINISHING THIS STORY, DAMMIT! _XD I mean, that's not how they told me, but they should have!) Even though I have five other stories up here, I WILL make TLC my priority. I've been working on specific scenes for the other chapters, so they're kinda already in progress, and my hubby is writing the Doom flashbacks (so that will help me a LOT). He likes Doom, and he too wants to see this long story finished, so he's graciously and kindly jumping in to help me. So, yeah. He gets kudos for that (and the flames if you guys get scared or angry by Doom's flashbacks :P).

**A/N: **I will not update any other story until TLC is done. I am happy to report that, so far, we are right on schedule. We only have, hopefully, five more normal chapters, and then the Ending. I've already written the last normal chapter and the Ending, soooo, technically, I only have _**four**_ more chapters to write! I hope it doesn't feel rushed from now onwards (the travel time to Latveria and the actual fight were always meant to be broken into parts interspersed with clarifying flashbacks, anyway). Then again, this battle is happening really quickly once we get to Latveria because, come on, who wants to sit and laze around when Doom is trying to kill your ass? NO ONE!

Thank you again, so much, for all your follows/favorites/alerts/reviews and general support for this story. You're the best and most awesome Faithful Readers any fanfic writer could have ever asked for!

On with the story!

* * *

**Chapter 10**

Tony rubbed his face with his hands before he exhaled deeply through them. He then placed his right palm on his chest, felt for the pinwheel necklace he refused to take off, and then opened his eyes to wash away the sleep from his very being. The last five days had been hell on Earth for him, with everything that could have gone wrong in this mission, actually taking place thus far. Of course, this was not counting the only bit of good news he had received up to now: the fact that the parental units appeared to be doing alright in the States, despite the continued attacks Doom had perpetrated on cities around the world.

Five days. Five painstakingly long days since Team A had left – since he had last seen or heard from his wife.

He shut off the shower, closed his eyes for a moment, and then rested his forehead against the cold tiled wall. The almost freezing feeling of the cold water he had just had directly hitting his body and face did not appear to be enough to shake off the feelings of dread, desperation, and drowsiness that appeared to be determined to weighing him down. Nothing he had done as of now had allowed him to enjoy a good night's sleep, or experience the personal satisfaction of a hearty meal. Not even watching the videos and pictures of his son – the ones Maya had brought with her to prove that the child was alive – had made any difference for him.

They were simple inanimate objects, at the end of the day, and in no way did they replace the reality he wanted to be a part of. He could not place his hands on the image of his son and feel his warmth, or smell the uniqueness of his talc-like toddler scent. He could not stare at a picture of Pepper and expect her to suddenly show up at his door, appear in their bed, or at least hear her voice near him, yelling at him to take care of himself while she was gone.

If she were here, if she could see first-hand what this torture of lack of knowledge was doing to him, she would have become more than just fucking pissed at him – she would have already beat him senseless with her own two hands, and she would have forced him to rest. She would have told him what he already knew: that he was being stupid for not taking care of himself when he was supposed to be leaving soon. That he needed to have faith in her and in his plans – that she had survived worse situations on her own. That he was acting nothing like the man she had fallen in love with: someone who had always been proud, confident and sure of himself.

Then again, she was _not_ here, and that was the problem. Or, actually, the problem was that he did not know where she was, or if she still _was_. And unless a miracle happened for him before his team was due to leave – in four days, to be exact – he would be on his way to Latveria without any knowledge of his wife's whereabouts and state of being. At least not until the four teams met at the final checkpoint in Kübekháza: a small village in Hungary, a few miles from Latveria's northern borders, where they would join T'Challa and be fitted with their new and improved armored suits.

Goosebumps made him open his eyes once more, and he welcomed the uncomfortable and prickly feeling they left on his skin. He then exited the small shower stall, grabbed a towel, patted himself dry, and then proceeded to put on some clothes. By the time he got out of his quarters and made it to the command center, everyone else was already busy doing their assigned tasks. The inventor walked towards his chair, sat in it, did not bother saying anything to anyone around as he caught up with the logs of last night, and then loaded the screen that showed the most recent map of Europe.

He sighed loudly as he realized that it had changed yet again; although, at the very least, the remaining checkpoints continued to be intact – it was just everything around them that refused to stay the same. Team A's next checkpoint before they hit the Alps was in Bern, Switzerland – their one after that being in Venice, Italy, which would be the last one before reaching the final meeting point in Hungary. Team B's next checkpoint, from which a message was due to be received today, was in Brussels, Belgium – their other two being in Frankfurt Germany, and then in Vienna, Austria. Team C would be leaving in two days; their first checkpoint being in Kassel, Germany, their second being in Vienna, Austria, and their last one, before their arrival at the final meeting place, would be in Budapest, Hungary. Team D would be leaving two days after Team C departed, and since their route was the most public, fastest, and easiest of them all, they only had two checkpoints: the first one in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; and one before reaching Hungary, in Munich, Germany.

Had it not been for Doom's second attack, and the consequences of it, the resistance's counterattack would have been taking place according to plan. Or at least a lot closer than it was being executed right now. On the other hand, the fact that Team A was not yet accounted for and had probably been forced to alter its original path, could not necessarily be the sole reason for his planning to be counted as a failure. In his mind, he knew that casualties were the norm and not the exception in times of war. In his mind, he also knew that, just as Winston Churchill retreating from the battle of Dunkirk, the loss of Team A did not mean they could not still win the war. However, his fast-beating heart told him that if his redhead, if his Pepper, did not make it out alive, even if he were able to recover his son from the hands of Doctor Doom and save the world, his victory could not be called as such. At least not by him.

"Tony," Maria Hill snapped him out of his less-than-triumphant thoughts.

"Yeah?" he did not even bother to look back at her.

"Living Laser just sent this report to us: Team B has made it to Brussels."

Tony grabbed the piece of paper from the woman, scanned it briefly to confirm everything was as it should be, and then handed it back to Maria with a nod.

"Any news on Team A?" Tony asked, his soul for an instant filling up with hope when he saw that she had another piece of paper in her hands.

Unfortunately for him, a slow shake of the head was Maria Hill's only response.

xxxXXXxxx

_ He could hear them. Smell them. Feel them. Sense their auras and their almost crippling pain. But he could not make himself move a muscle to ease their agony. Everything around him felt cold and uncomfortable, and no matter how much he wanted to scream, cry, whimper, or try to communicate in other ways with anyone that had been near him thus far, he had not been able to do so._

_ He was not sure how or why this had happened to him, but he blamed the lady that had visited him hours ago; the one that had pinched his neck with something that had momentarily hurt him. There was no other explanation for his current situation. No reason for him to be trapped inside his own body. No other motive for his heart to break at hearing his Mama talking to him, crying over him, asking him to open his eyes for her._

_ And he wanted to do it, so badly, to please his mother. And his father, too, who he could sense had just walked near them as well._

_ "It's time, Pep."_

"_Not now, Tony. Jimmy is asleep."_

_Sleep. He knew what that word meant and it gave him hope. Perhaps, his Mama knew that something was terribly wrong with him, and that he just needed to sleep it off – to wait until the weird things in him made him feel better. That he was not ignoring her pleas on purpose; he would never dream of doing anything to make his Mama sad. That he wanted to open his eyes for her as much as she was begging him to do. Maybe, if he continued to be patient, and now that his Dada was here, too, between the two of them they would finally realize that he was just having trouble doing anything at all. That he was not disobeying them. That he was just a little… stuck._

_That he was __**not**__ really asleep._

_That he could hear, sense, and feel it all._

"_Pepper, honey. Howie is not asleep."_

"_Yes, he is. His eyes are closed, and he hasn't moved since we got here. He's asleep."_

_ YES! His Mama knew what was happening to him! She could sense that he was trying to come back to her! Now, if only his Dada saw it, too. He just had to convince his Dada that his Mama was telling the truth!_

_ "Once upon a time, there was a little boy named: Jimmy…"_

_ YES! His Dada understood, too! He just __**had**__ to! He was telling him a bedtime story, and he only did that when it was nappy time. Oh, how much he loved those stories! He did not understand half of what he said to him, but the colorful pictures he showed them while talking to him were very interesting. They always caught his eye, or at least until his Dada would distract him by making funny sounds with his mouth, like 'choo-choo,' or 'moooo,' or 'woof-woof.'_

_ "And one day, little Jimmy realized he was special…"_

_ If he could have moved, he would have smiled, perhaps even giggle in happiness. Not only was his Dada telling him a story, but now his Mama had begun rocking him, too. She was so warm and soft. He wanted to cuddle up with her. Bump noses with her. And he also wanted for his Dada to pick him up in the air and then wag him from side to side. It was so much fun! Not as much fun as being tickled, but still fun, nonetheless._

_ "And he lived happily ever after, with his family and his best friend."_

_ He felt his father's hand on his face, rubbing his cheek up and down._

_ "I love you," he heard his Dada say just before he felt something warm press against his forehead. The move was then followed by the feeling of something wet falling on his cheeks and eyes, but his Dada was quick to wipe the itchy things away._

"_Don't let them take him, Tony," he heard his mother say; although, the only word he had understood was the name her Mama called his Dada. He then felt her holding him tighter than she had ever held him before. It actually kind of hurt him a little, but it hurt him more that his mother's aura was spiking in pain all over again. "You can't let them take him. He… he-he just needs more time. He'll wake up soon, you'll see."_

_"Pepper, he… he's not waking up. They need to prep him, Pep. They need to take him now."_

_ If he could have, he would have made a pouty face. He had thought that his Dada understood that he was just a little bit sick, but that this was all that was wrong with him. Now, his father sounded different – his aura __**felt**__ different. It was something that made him feel uneasy, even if he was not sure what this feeling coming from his father was. All he needed to know, however, was that it was somehow the complete opposite of what his Mama's aura was telling him she wanted to do._

_"No. Why aren't you listening to me? He just needs to sleep it off."_

_ "Pepper, please. He's not–"_

_ "NO! STOP IT, TONY! GIVE HIM TIME!"_

_ Even though he knew his body did not move, he felt himself shake a little inside with how loud and angry his mother was. Actually, he was more than just scared – he was getting angry, too. He was getting annoyed at not being able to do anything to show that he was alright. And, he was becoming a little upset that his Dada was not listening to his Mama's words. He could not understand why he was doing that to her. He believed that his Dada loved him. He had thought that his Dada wanted him around._

_ Had something changed? Was his Dada trying to make him go away? Had he become tired of him?_

_ Had he done something wrong? Had Boom told his Dada bad things about him while he had been away from his parents? Had Boom made his Dada not love him anymore? Was it even possible for his own father to not want him in his life? He was half of him, was he not? Was this why he was no longer allowed to be in the same place as he had been before, with them?_

_"Pep. Pep, Pep… Pepper, listen… look at me… Pep…"_

_"No, Tony! Don't do this to me! Don't help them take him away!"_

_ "They have to. We-we have to let them."_

_"No, we don't! Don't take their side! You're supposed to be __**my**__ partner! You're supposed to help __**me**__! Why are you taking their side? WHY ARE YOU BETRAYING ME?"_

_ He hated not understanding all the sounds his parents made, especially when his mother was crying and screaming as hard as she was. He had never felt like this before, not even when Boom had tried hurting his Dada and he had almost not been able to break himself out of his crib. This was worse than that. Much, much, much worse! His Mama needed him. He knew he could help her. And she needed so much help! If only he could move. If only he could make a sound. If only his Dada would believe that he was just sort of asleep! If only his Dada was not mad at him!_

_"He's gone, Pepper. He's not coming back to us."_

_"But, he IS! He's as stubborn as you! You came back to me every time! Even when no one thought you'd make it, you did! Believe in him, Tony! Please, believe in him! You just have to… UGH!"_

_**NO!**__ He wanted to scream the other word that he somewhat knew what it meant. He had not been able to say it aloud yet, but he knew he was close to being able to say it. He would have probably even been able to say it right now, if he could move! It was a very powerful word; that much he knew. It made people stop whatever they were doing. It made people pay attention to whomever said it. He knew that, if he could just say that one word, that his Dada would stop making his Mama becoming so sad. He knew his Dada would no longer hurt her._

_"NO! STOP! Don't do it! Tony! TONY! DON'T!"_

_"I'm sorry, Pepper." _

_He suddenly felt his mother's warm arms going away, and they were replaced by the warmth of another person – another lady; the one that had been nearby all this time. She did not seem to be a bad lady; her aura appeared to be sad, too. But he did not know her very well to just immediately trust her. So far, both Boom and the Lady with the Brown Hair had turned out to be bad people. He had to be more careful about who he would allow near him and his parents._

_His mother's aura began changing, diminishing, as if something was turning it off around her. Her voice no longer sounded as loud, yet his Dada was as stubborn and blind as before. What had they done to his Mama? What had his Dada done to his mother? What had he done himself to deserve this? He did not want to be away from his parents, especially his mommy. Especially not now that his Dada was not listening to his mother's use of the word: no._

_Nothing made any sense to him. Nothing at all. Least of all the last words he heard his Mama say before he was carried too far from her to hear her anymore. But he did not need to know all the words to know that his Dada had hurt his Mama very much._

_ "Fuck you, Stark! You son of a bitch! Why are you doing this? WHY?"_

_ A few minutes after being taken away from his mother, and after being put in a very cold and empty room, he again passed out._

xxxXXXxxx

"We don't know how well it's working for Nightcrawler, but it's powered by something that should outlast us all," Tony told Beast as he checked the high-tech bracelet on Hank McCoy's right wrist, for the last time.

"So, something like a Twinkie?" Happy inquired, his eyes focused on something only he could see – perhaps mentally recapping the pre-planned path they would embark on in a few minutes' time. They would reach London rather quickly, and from there they would join the mainland by entering via The Hogue, in the Netherlands. "I read somewhere that Twinkies last forever."

"Or you watched it in a cartoon," Hawkeye said in his best nonchalant-sounding voice, if only to bring some humor to their tense departure. "I think I saw it, too."

"It's not powered by a Twinkie," Tony assured the X-Man with a roll of his eyes at the other two men. "I promise it _will_ outlast a Twinkie."

"If this works as well as Professor Xavier's chair, I don't think I have anything to worry about," the blue-furred man replied with a smile.

"_The Pep Ride_…" Tony flinched at stating the nickname for the RT-50. "The-the chair… it's state of the art."

"Then so is this," Hank nodded.

Tony returned the nod with reassurance before he turned his attention to Maria Hill.

"You have everything you need, Agent Hill?"

"Yes, Tony," the kind woman placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure you don't want us to stop near Paris?"

"I'm sure," Tony replied immediately. "That's way off course for your team."

"It's no problem for us."

"No," the genius shook his head. "Stick to the course unless the path is not there anymore. Team A can still use the Bern safe house. They… they _will_ use the Bern safe house. I just know that they will."

"Alright," Maria reluctantly agreed.

While Maria and Hank busied themselves double-checking their supplies and maps, Tony walked up to Hawkeye and gave him an apologetic look.

"I'll make sure you guys know as soon as Team A checks-in. I promise I _will _let you know as soon as we hear from them."

Hawkeye spared the genius a glance and nodded to him. Barton then inhaled and exhaled loudly through his nose, looked back to make sure the other four team members were not listening in to their conversation, and he then returned his eyes to Tony.

"You know, Natasha is not one to take _normal_ things seriously. Like, engagements, marriage, babies… But… but it works for us, you know? She… she rarely calls me: her boyfriend. She thinks it's sorta juvenile-sounding, especially at our age. But," he cleared his throat, "But I know she cares. I know her. I know how she thinks. I know what she's capable of. I have hope that she and her team weren't anywhere near Paris when it happened."

"They… they're a strong team. They have a good combination going on. Maya is deceptively sneaky. Kurt is fast. Widow is cunning, resourceful and athletic. Iceman is strong. And Pepper… Pepper is stubborn as fuck."

Hawkeye laughed aloud and shook his head.

"She's something else, alright. I'm sure she'd rather do a lot of worse things before giving up."

"Yeah," Tony gulped. "She would."

The two men became silent for a moment, both lost in the words they were not saying aloud, thinking about their respective redheads, until Jarvis stood behind them and cleared his throat.

"Mr. Stark, may I have a word with you?"

"Sure," Tony instantly replied, gave Clint a friendly pat on the back, and then followed his family butler to stand a few feet away from the other individuals around them.

"Everything OK?" Tony asked.

"Yes. We should be ready to go in a couple of minutes. But, before that takes place, I wanted to ask a favor from you."

"Favor?" Tony crinkled his brow. "Wait, I'm _not _kissing Bambi goodbye for you. You need to make sure you come back to do that yourself."

Jarvis chuckled lightly, shook his head, and then handed Tony an envelope with the CEO's assistant's name written on it.

"As certain as I am that Ms. Arbogast would love to make the cover of _The National Enquirer_ for being caught red-handed with her boss, the favor I wish to ask you for is to merely hand her that envelope, when the time is right."

Tony held the envelope in between his fingers. For a second, he wished he had the ability to x-ray anything with his eyes, and he then looked up to give Jarvis a pained look.

"I have a feeling that the 'right time' is not one I want to think about."

"Thinking about the worst outcomes is rather depressing. I agree with that. But regretting what we should've done to prepare for them when they come is much, much worse."

Tony stared at the envelope again, briefly closed his eyes, and then faced Jarvis once more.

"J, you don't _have_ to go. You can still say: no. You… I'll send you back to the States. You-you can tell Bambi whatever it is this letter says yourself."

"I sincerely doubt she'd appreciate me telling her to move on with her life, if I'm still alive, Mr. Stark."

"You know what I mean."

Tony lowered his arms and then stared at Happy and at Hawkeye as he spoke. "I already sent my two best friends to war. I'm about to send two more. I… You're not obligated to do this."

The young billionaire's head hung. He closed his eyes, breathed loudly, and then felt his shoulders being grabbed.

"Tony," the use of his first name coming from his butler startled him. Not once, in all the years of serving his family, had Jarvis ever referred to him in such an informal way – not even when he was a child. The fact that it was taking place right now was unnerving for him; not because he felt Jarvis had no right to speak to him in this manner, but because of what the sudden casualness between them implied.

"Your father, your mother, and myself… we didn't raise you to be a quitter, son. You've gotten this far. Farther than a lot of people would've been willing to go at your age… in your position. The world thought you were dead. You could've stayed that way. Being safe underground. Let this war wear itself out, and _then_ come out to rejoice in peace."

"I would've never been able to do that. My son is still in Latveria."

"James could have been with you the whole time, and you would've still suited up to fight this madman. Because… because that's what you do. That's who you are. That's who we look up to."

Tony slowly raised his head to stare at the man before him, but he was not given a chance to make any response when Jarvis continued his speech.

"We're not here because it's fun, Tony. We're here because we believe Doctor Doom has no right to do what he's doing. Because we think it's wrong for one man to have so much power and to abuse it as much as he has. Because we want to do something about it. And because we trust that you're the person to follow to do what needs to be done. Do you think all these people would do what we're doing for anyone else? Don't you think we would've preferred to do things differently?"

"I…" Tony swallowed hard. He honestly did not know what to say.

"We trust you. And we believe in you. And we know that no one can guarantee our safety – not even you. But we're going, anyway. _I'm_ going, anyway. Because _you_'re the one in charge."

Tony clenched his eyes shut, licked his lips, and then opened his eyes again.

"If you were going for a motivational speech, you kinda messed it up. I feel even more pressure now."

Jarvis laughed aloud and pulled away from him.

"Good. That was the point. Your mother… she would be so proud of her son. I know your father is. I know I am."

Unexpectedly, Edwin Jarvis found himself in an embrace with the genius; an embrace he returned as fiercely as it was being received.

"I'll see you near Latveria," Tony said.

"I'll save you a spot at the front row. I think you'd make an excellent human shield for me."

Tony chuckled as he pulled back and nodded to the man.

"So I've been told."

A moment of silence dawned upon them for a second as Tony stared at the envelope in his hands. He then looked up to face Jarvis, gave him a final nod, and then spoke to him for the last time before his team left.

"Well, now I have to go say goodbye to the _other_ friend I'm sending off to war."

"Offer him a Twinkie. He'll forget all about it," Jarvis said without missing a beat, and then watched Tony as the young man laughed his way to where Harold Hogan was patiently waiting to be deployed.

xxxXXXxxx

_That had been the longest nap ever for him. Long enough for him to temporarily forget the last thing that had happened to him before waking up. Long enough for him to momentarily forget that he had not been able to open his eyes, or move his tiny body at all, until now._

_And it hurt to wake up._

_It hurt really bad._

"_Did you really have to try to kill him as soon as he got here?" the Lady with the Brown Hair asked a rather tall man that was standing next to her, both of which were looking down at him with questioning looks._

"_Pepper Potts survived an outstanding dose of Taipan Snake venom when the Stane girl had her in the submarine. I just wanted to confirm that her offspring had, at the very least, inherited this same capability. Two days to get rid of the venom is not bad for a child," the tall man said, making him bring his attention to the stranger's aura and features._

_It took him a minute of observation, but he learned a lot about the man before him. Most of it was not good, with the rare exception that the man appeared to have his Mama's eyes. Although, they did not appear to be warm or comforting as his Mama's were – they were cold, scary and… if it were at all possible: mean. _

_In addition, and for some reason he could not comprehend, the man shared part of his aura type with his Mama, but it was also tainted in the same way Boom's was. In fact, his aura composition was unlike any other person he had seen before. It was as if he were looking at his Mama, his Dada, himself and Boom, all rolled into one. It was confusing how one person could have so much of others in him; more combinations than he could count. But he figured that there were still many things, many, many things, that he was yet to come across in his short life. So many things that his Mama had not taught him yet._

_His Mama. The thought of her and the realization that she was nowhere nearby made his lips quiver and his eyes water. She had been so upset the last he had been near her. So upset that he had feared she was going to make herself sick over it. Then there was his Dada. He had been upset, too, but he was not around either. Nor was the smart lady that had taken him away from his Mama. Or Bro. Or Pi. Or the Glowing Man. Or the other people his parents told him to call Grandma and Grandpa – not one of the four people that carried this name were in the room. It was just him, the Lady with the Brown Hair, and the Tall Man. _

_In fact, now that he allowed himself to feel and sense things around him, he realized he did not recognize anything of where he was. The smells were different. The sounds were different, too. Even the atmosphere itself was odd. It was not clean and comfortable like it had been in his home. It was uninviting, scary, and filled with something he would later come to understand were the remnants of death._

_Sooner rather than later, he began to cry._

"_See what you did, Killian?" the Lady with the Brown Hair picked him up, held him against her chest, and began patting his back lightly while rocking him from side to side._

"_Made a baby cry?" the Tall Man scoffed. "That's what babies do. They're very stupid and pointless. Then again, this is not just any baby. This is my grandson. He might be worth my time."_

"_How you got so many women to sleep with you is beyond me."_

"_I'm quite the charmer when I feel like it. Ask your mother. She can give you the juicy details, if you're so inclined to be in the know."_

"_No, she can't," the brown-haired lady's aura momentarily showed pain._

"_Oh, that's right! She's dead."_

_The Tall Man suddenly appeared behind the brown-haired lady, and only to forcefully hold his left arm. He tried pulling it away from him, a look of disgust on his face, and he succeeded in doing so, to the man's surprise. But when the man used both of his limbs on him, he was not able to pull away again._

"_Let's cut his hand."_

_ "He just regained consciousness, Aldrich!"_

_ "Exactly. We've wasted enough testing time waiting for him to wake up. Let's get it started now."_

_ "But–"_

_ "Quiet, Maya. I'm doing this with or without you. But you're still cleaning up the blood."_

_ Maya, Aldrich, and __**blood**__ – three new words he would soon come to know what they meant, and the pain they all brought._

xxxXXXxxx

Despite the team's side-mission of gathering information on their way to Latveria, Team B was right on track – more so than any other team so far. Even if they had left Muir Island two hours before the scheduled time due to the news of the tragedy in Paris, France, they had not had any major issues arriving to their checkpoints for now. In fact, this very morning, when they had made it to the abandoned warehouse that served as their current safe house in Frankfurt, Germany, they had been ever so lucky to be able to set camp, eat, rest and replenish their supplies, all completely undisturbed.

Even the night had been transpiring without incident, but that did not mean they thought they could leave their guard down.

The first watch had been taken by Gambit. The second watch had been taken by Fury. The third watch by Scott. And the fourth watch, the one that had just ended minutes ago, had been carried by the blonde agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., whom he now knew was actually not referred to as Madame Masque anymore, but by her own S.H.I.E.L.D. codename: Chameleon.

It was now Rhodey's turn, and the man was more than grateful for Tony breaking up everyone in teams of five.

The recommended schedule for everyone to set down camp started at 8 P.M. and ended at 6:00 A.M. This allowed for the ten hours of night time to be equally distributed amongst all five team members, giving each other eight full hours of sleep, and leaving only two hours of guarding time per person. Two hours of full alert time was not bad, given the circumstances, and it still left them with plenty of time to regain their strength for the travel woes of the next day. They were also to rotate the order of the shifts, so that no one had to always be the one to get up at 4 A.M. every day.

Today, Rhodey had been the one to have gotten the short-end of the stick.

The last person on watch had to alternate between keeping an eye on everything and getting ready for the day. Extreme hygiene was not at the top of the to-do list for anyone on the mission, but there were some minimal items that needed to be completed for the sake of maintaining a healthy state of body and mind. The order and timeframe in which these items were to be completed throughout the last guard shift was irrelevant, as long as the person who was on duty was ready to leave by 6 A.M. – the time by which everyone else would get up and be ready to leave in less than five minutes from that time.

If everything went according to plan, Rhodey would only have to take the early morning guard shift one more time before reaching the final checkpoint in Hungary; their path was only ten days. He would wait until everything was said and done to praise his friend, but he was starting to realize that Tony's planning had been rather smart. On paper, the paths, timeframe and details of the missions looked too intricate and overly convoluted. However, and with the exception of the unexpected attacks on Paris, the execution of the inventor's crazy ideas was actually paying off.

That is, if no one counted the fact that Team A was MIA.

Rhodey would not lie if he were to be asked if he was even a little bit tempted about deviating from their assigned path to try to find Pepper. He was _very_ tempted, in fact. She was as much of a friend to him as Tony was – even if, when first meeting her way back in school, he had tried avoiding hanging out with her at all costs, as if she were carrying the plague. Truth was that the chatty girl had wormed her way into his heart, had made permanent residence there, and the mere fact of imagining a life where he would no longer cringe when hearing her high-pitched whines was everything but comforting for him.

Rhodey wishing Pepper would be there to annoy him until the day he died… who would have thought that would ever be the case for him? Certainly not James Rhodes himself.

Then again, this was as unexpected to him as Tony Stark falling in love with Pepper Potts. Or the two of them getting married. Or having a kid together. Or them naming their kid in a way to honor him, in part. Or them…

_Dying_, Rhodey held back a growl.

To avoid going down the negative path his mind took him to when remembering the pain of believing his two best friends gone, the latest S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit stood up from the ground, double-checked that his gun was loaded, strapped it onto his belt, stretched his arms above his head, and then opted to quietly parade around the building. He had two hours to kill – no pun intended – and he was going to make damn well sure he did not sit still for too long. Staying in one place made one feel comfortable – and being comfortable led to falling asleep on the job.

The concrete structure had five floors, several empty rooms on each floor, a basement, and a once-usable rooftop, all of which reminded him a lot of the grounds at the Tomorrow Academy. In fact, save for the lack of paint, lockers, and some maintenance issues, the only thing the place needed right now to look even more like his high school was to have a water tower atop of it all. And possibly maybe even some random crates near the water tower which, to this day, Rhodey still did not know what their purpose back at the academy had been.

_The Academy_, Rhodey scowled. _I wonder if Doom took it down, too._

Despite his alertness and constant walking from the basement and up the building, floor by floor, Rhodey's mind eagerly wandered, jumping from one seemingly disconnected thought to the next. His brain brought up memories of his time in high school, his early days as part of Team Iron Man, his time at the Air Force Academy, his training with S.H.I.E.L.D., family meals, friends' get-togethers, lessons in history about how Frankfurt's infrastructure had been affected during World War II, geographical facts of the area that told him the body of water by the south edge of the building was called the Main River, and how life had passed him by in the blink of an eye, leaving him with very little opportunity to grasp the fact that he was now a full-grown adult.

At his twenty-two years of age, James Rupert Rhodes was legally able to smoke, drink, have sex, and carry a handgun; which, in turn, made him old enough to die here tonight, as well.

The fact that he could die at any point during this war did not scare him as much as the fact that he knew that, if he were to perish at any point during it, he would do so without a legacy to his name. Leaving something behind to be remembered by had never been at the top of his list, but it was in situations like these – when death surrounded you every step of the way, and when the feeling of the present day being your last on Earth constantly crept up on you – that grim thoughts you would have never otherwise worried about would come to mind.

Yes, he was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but so were countless others before and after him – and he was just getting started with the organization, anyway; he still had no major agent accomplishment under his belt. He was also War Machine, but anyone else could put on his suit and fight crime under that mantle – just as it had been the case when Happy Hogan had become Iron Man to replace Tony Stark, for a time. Even graduating from high school and college with honors meant diddly squat at the end of the day, unless you used your degree for the undeniable betterment of mankind: just as it had been the case with Howard Stark.

And even then, Howard Stark's only majorly known legacy, despite his academic achievements and years of individual hard work to build the largest technology innovation and manufacturing company in the world from _scratch_, would always be being one of the two people who brought into the world the marvel that was Anthony Edward Stark.

What was he, James Rhodes, responsible for? So far: absolutely nothing of value. So much for playing the role of voice of reason for the team: he currently could not even reason with himself.

Then again, if he _did_ die during this war, and they still somehow managed to win it without him, would he not be remembered as one of the valiant members of the resistance who took on Doctor Doom and gave their life for humanity? Would he not become a fallen hero of war, or some other honorable title related to that? Maybe even get a school named after him? Perhaps a building? Or, at the very least, have a major street in his hometown renamed in his honor?

Maybe dying in this war _was _going to be his legacy.

Rhodey scoffed at the irony of his situation and shook his head. His eyes admired the barely visible glimmering of the water below him from his vantage point by the edge of the rooftop of the safe house. There was still no electrical power available for most of the populated world, but the moon was close and large enough tonight to provide sufficient light to see plenty of the area around him – to see the devastation left behind.

His gaze lifted from the river and aimed towards the other side of the stream. Some of the buildings were half destroyed, while others had already been rendered completely flat. A lot of the people they had seen on their way inside the city were living in makeshift tents in the street. Some others simply laid on cots or blankets on the bare ground. The lucky ones still had half a roof above their heads – but they did not have much more than those living outside.

He wondered if Vienna would be any better or any worse than this. He wondered if the States were still mostly intact after the second attack. He wondered if Pepper Potts was still alive. And then, he wondered what that whistling sound was.

His head looked up to the dark skies and moved left and right until the increasing noise made its origin clear, sending every drop of blood rushing down to his feet. It was fast. It was deadly. And it was heading their way.

"SHIT!"

His right hand landed on the short-range walkie-talkie device that Tony had made them. He barely had the chance to press on the emergency button before the draft created by the missile that flew above him sent him off to kiss the gravelly rooftop.

"Oomph!"

He rolled a few times on the ground, so out of control of his own body movements that, for a second, he wondered if he looked as ridiculous and helpless as the ducklings he had seen in online videos, forcefully being brushed away from their mother by a strong gust of wind. It had been funny when it had happened to them – it was absolutely unacceptable that it was happening to him.

"D-da-m-mit," even the much-deserved expletive was difficult to spit out when there was not enough air in your lungs to speak, but there was also too much wind hitting you in the face to be able to take a proper breath.

"_Rhodey!"_ Scott's voice resounded from the walkie-talkie. _"Rhodey, what's going on?"_

The man rolled once more, this time voluntarily, so that he could minimize the loud noises above him with his back.

"Scott! Get out! Get everybody out! It's a missile attack! Doom is attacking again!"

"_At night? That son of a bitch!"_

If Scott said anything else after that, Rhodey was unable to hear him over the loud booms of bombs being dropped, shells exploding, buildings collapsing, people screaming, and the whistling of more missiles flying by. Moreover, James Rhodes missed the voices of his team demanding he got off the roof as soon as possible to join their evacuation efforts. And he only missed their words because, when the third set of missiles flew by above him, one of them dropped a grenade on the opposite edge of the roof he had been barely standing in… and it exploded on impact.

xxxXXXxxx

_"Do you miss your Mama?" Maya asked the toddler as she removed the bandages that had once covered his formerly mutilated left hand. Aldrich had been running some testing and trials on him to increase the rate at which he could regrow parts of his body. After five months of being submitted to these atrocious acts, he was down to just a few minutes rather than days, as it had been the case in the past. Unfortunately for baby James Stark, Aldrich Killian was aiming for instantaneous regrowth, not systematic regrowth that took five-minute intervals._

_ "How about your Dada, do you miss him?"_

_ The baby's eyes shifted from staring at his now intact-looking hand to staring at Maya's blue eyes. They somewhat reminded him of his father's eyes, even though they were a different shade of blue. It was very ironic to him how this woman's orbs partly resembled his father's, while Aldrich's resembled his mother's, yet they were nothing alike. Sometimes, he pretended that he was looking at his parents rather than at these people when he looked into their eyes; if only not to feel too sad that his parents were no longer around._

_He took a few more seconds to reply, but he eventually slowly nodded a couple of times._

_ "Do you remember your Mama's name?" Maya took a few steps away from him and headed towards a drawer. He knew what she was looking for because she always did this after she finished patching him up. She did it so that the poor child had some happiness in his life while being experimented on like a simple lab rat. She did it because she hoped that one day she would be able to return this baby to his parents' awaiting arms._

_ "Who is this, James? Who is this?"_

_ The toddler held the picture of his mother in his hands, his eyes becoming teary eyed almost immediately. He sniffled and he pouted, but he did not dare to wail. Aldrich did not like it when he did that. He always got annoyed and mad at him for doing so – and hit him when his cries became too loud for the man's taste._

_ "Bep," James replied._

_ "Mama," Maya pointed to the picture. "This is your Mama. Can you say: Mama?"_

_ "Bep," James sniffled. "Bep."_

_ "How about your Dada?" Maya showed the baby another picture. "This is your Dada. Can you say: Dada?"_

_ Just as before, James grabbed the picture in his hands, stared at it, and a small smile formed on his lips._

_ "Ony," the child's smile grew wider. "Ony!"_

_ The brunette watched James as his eyes jumped from staring at one picture to the other, his face denoting how much he missed his parents. How much he wanted to go back to them._

_ "Aya?" the baby's version of her name was endearing to her, but not so much was what she knew he was going to do next. He always asked the same question every time these pictures were shown to him. It never failed. Just as it never failed to impress her how quickly this fifteen-month old child was learning new words, and how smart he was becoming. It should have been impossible for anyone so young, and yet he was doing it._

"_Go?" James lifted the pictures of his parents and waved them in his hands. "Go?"_

_ "No," Maya shook her head with regret. "Not yet."_

_ James's arms dropped to his lap, but he did not let go of the pictures._

_ "W-w-wheeen?" he still struggled to say the new word he had learned a few days ago, but he knew that he had to keep saying it until Maya told him it was time to see his parents again._

_ "I don't know, James," the botanist carefully took the pictures from him._

_ Now that his arms were free, he hugged himself and looked at the woman while she put away the pictures back in the drawer in which they were kept. A moment later, she returned to him, was about to pick him up from the worktable to bring him with her to go eat, but she was stunned to near stillness by the sudden widening of James's eyes and the word that he uttered in fear._

_ "Boom."_

_ Not two seconds later, Doctor Doom walked inside the lab through the door the toddler had been watching with dread. Doom had never hurt him since the time he had scared him and his father, back at the penthouse, but James was still very wary of him. It was mostly due to the fact that Doom treated Maya rather poorly and violently, and Maya was the only person around here that seemed to care about him._

_ "Leave, girl."_

_ "But–"_

_ Whatever response Maya was about to make, it was silenced by the back of Doctor Doom's metal hand. He really despised having the wretched woman around his castle, but she was yet to outlive her usefulness. If it was not for the fact that no one else around here seemed capable of caring for a young child, Maya Hansen's life would have ended a long time ago._

_ "I will not repeat myself."_

_ Maya held her already swelling cheek with her right palm as she stood up from the ground. She gave James a look of concern, stared at Doom's back, and then nodded once._

_ "He needs to eat," she dared to say on her stumbling way towards the door. The slap had surely jumbled something inside her head; she was seeing dark spots. It was probably going to leave a large bruise behind, too. But it was all worth it if Doom made sure James was fed. The unfortunate child needed a lot of food to make up for the energy he had expended re-growing limbs for Killian's amusement for the past week – much to the brunette's chagrin._

_ Once the door was closed and Maya was gone, Doom turned his attention to the frightened-looking boy, whose legs were dangling from the edge of the table he was sitting on. The small child did not look like much, but Doom had come to learn that his innocent appearance was very deceiving. He was the only person in the world that was able to see through his highly-advanced cloaking device with his bare eyes. He was immune to his Mainframe's brainwaves without the need for any protection or deterrent devices. He could read his emotions like an open book – a fact the ruler of Latveria was still not comfortable with. And, above all, he was at a prime age for him to be molded to his will: to be trained to become what he wanted the child to be, now that he saw the incredible potential in him._

_ "You will make a formidable heir, child," Doom almost hissed the words out. "And a worthy son to Doom." _

xxxXXXxxx

Slowly but surely, as steady and almost imperceptible as the shattering impact a dripping faucet could have, the underground facility at Muir Island had become nearly deserted by now. Every day, systematically and purposefully, groups of inhabitants of the facility had trickled out of the premises per Tony's instructions. The closer they got to finally facing Doom, the antsier the members of S.H.I.E.L.D. had become. Tony understood their anxiety – if the members of the resistance failed in their mission, the world as they knew it would most likely cease to exist. As soon as Doom realized where the base of operations was for them, it was almost a sure thing that he would make sure to leave nothing behind of it but a memory.

The inventor was keenly aware of this; of what today's departure of his team implied: today was the beginning of the end. Today could be anyone's last normal day on Earth.

As such, the blue-eyed boy had taken into account this unique situation for the remaining members at base by slowly relieving them of duty until only Professor Xavier, Doctor Ross, Doctor Betty Ross, and a handful of S.H.I.E.L.D. volunteers who refused to leave the building remained. This last group of support members would, in just a few moments, become the only inhabitants in the underground facility; a location that could very well become their final resting place if Doom got it out of anyone in the field the coordinates of this location.

Walking the halls of the place he had called home for the past few months was bittersweet. He had not become irrefutably attached to the place, but it was always sentimental to leave the locale that had hosted you while you prepared for the greatest challenge of your entire existence. Every other structure he had had any attachments with was gone. This underground facility – this hidden gem in Ireland, was the only place he could call home for now.

And he was going to leave it. Walk out of it and never look back. And that scared him for reasons he wished his mind would stop bringing up to him.

"_Tony, come in,"_ Rogue's voice in his walkie-talkie nearly startled him. _"Are you almost here? The final group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is about to leave."_

The genius struggled to maneuver the box in his arms while collecting the communication device attached to his hip to make his response.

"Yeah. Just give me a minute. I'm almost around the corner."

"_10-4."_

As soon as he returned his walkie-talkie to his hip, his eyes trailed down to stare at the contents of the box he held in his hands. It was the same box of personal items that their families had collected from the abandoned Stark Solutions penthouse and the former Rhodes' home before they had been dragged underground by S.H.I.E.L.D. The last party of agents to leave the island had a destination of the States. It was Tony's hope that, if he sent the box with these parting members of the resistance, that his and Pepper's belongings made it to the hands of Howard Stark and company; that, at the very least, their prized possessions made it home – even if _they_ did not.

The only two items that were not going to be sent back in this shipment where his dog tags, which Pepper had with her; and Pepper's pinwheel necklace, which he had around his neck. He knew that Pepper had taken other items with her on her trip to Latveria, but he could not worry about how to get those back home right now. His only hope – his only wish – was that Pepper herself would be able to bring them back with her… _alive_.

"There he is!" Bruce Banner's voice was loud and clear in the dead of the early morning as the underground location now resembled a ghost town more than a research facility.

"Thanks for waiting," Tony said with a nod.

"We saved a spot for it, right here," Agent Coulson said, pointing to the last available cargo space inside the stealth Quinjet while Tony placed the box in said location.

"I wrote the address here," Tony tapped the words on the box. "You can just drop it off whenever you get the chance. Doesn't even have to be right as you get there. You can even have it shipped there. It doesn't even have to be delivered in person, either. If you _do _ship it, have it be paid on delivery. My dad will take care of it."

"It's no big deal, Mr. Stark. We'll stop by as soon as we land," Agent Coulson assured him. "We… we understand the value of these items. Mrs. Stark would kill us if we didn't make sure they made it to her father in one piece."

Tony chuckled lightly, amused that even the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. knew of his wife's antics, and then shook his head.

"I'm sure she'd understand."

"Not taking any chances," Agent Coulson shook his head from side to side, an almost undetectable smirk forming on his face. "I heard she can be very scary when she gets mad."

Tony chuckled again and shrugged.

"You should see her when she gets pissed."

This time, it was Agent Coulson who laughed aloud.

"Anyway," Tony continued, "I've held you guys back too long already. Thank you for doing this for me. Stay alert… and stay alive."

"We'll do our best, Mr. Stark."

"Then you'll be alright."

After a final nod from the genius, Agent Coulson joined the rest of his crew inside the Quinjet, all of which had been ready to leave about five minutes ago, but who had also patiently waited for the leader of the resistance to bring the box to them. They would never tell the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., but they felt better led and understood by the young genius than by the veteran of the peace-keeping organization of the world. They knew that, had Fury been the sole voice of command during this operation, they would have never been given the chance to return home to their families as they were doing so right now.

At first, the agents had been skeptical of Tony Stark calling the shots for this counterattack. Yet now, they saw first-hand the hidden strategical and leadership abilities the blue-eyed boy appeared to have. His wife, the spunky redhead, appeared to be as compassionate and considerate of others as her husband seemed to be – this was another observation that the agents had made throughout the course of their stay here. They were honored and felt indebted to make sure the two heroes' possessions made it into the hands of their families and friends. It was the least they could do for the people who would waltz into Latveria for the sake of everyone else.

Tony remained silent and pensive as he, Rogue, and Banner watched the aircraft lift in the air and become invisible once in the sky. The genius then looked behind himself to stare at an incoming Gene Khan and Jean Grey, and the other four members of his team immediately saw the change in his eyes. He went from looking friendly and partly relaxed, to looking focused and intense.

"Are you all ready?" Tony asked as he caught his travel backpack that Jean had been carrying with her, and he threw it over his shoulders.

"We were ready yesterday, Stark," Gene spat in what anyone else would have believed to be an annoyed tone, but Tony knew that he was just doing it for show.

"Then let's go," the inventor replied, earning him a nod from everyone in his team.

Sadly for Tony, his wish that they would hear from Team A arriving a Bern today, right before his team left, was never meant to come true.

xxxXXXxxx

_He had partially lied to Nick Fury about the progress of his work when they had met last month, and only because his employer was more likely to kill him than Fury was likely to even attempt arresting him for not having the cure to all of their illnesses ready when he had promised that he would. What the two men did not understand about his research, not even the great Doctor Doom, was that Extremis was a rather volatile compound that, most of the time, yielded unpredictable results. It could not just be molded to do as one pleased whenever one felt like it. If that had been the case, then the creator of the virus would have not resorted to having to change his identity over and over again, for so many years._

_ And, he would have not killed so many women, either._

_ For that matter, he would have never pursued fatherhood, otherwise._

_ "Oh, my dear Virginia. To think that your son would become the answer to all my problems."_

_ He had never been one to embrace sentimentality, foster the establishment and nurturing of family ties, or even be one to be interested in the concept of serendipity. However, the more he had learned about James, the more he had also learned about Pepper. And the more he had learned about Pepper, the more he had become impressed and curious about the life of the child he had deemed to be nothing more than a scientific failure._

_As Aldrich Killian waited for the final results of what he knew would be his greatest scientific achievement, he took a moment to flip the qualitative coin of Pepper Potts-Stark._

_ She looked so much like her mother, sans her eyes, as Jill Hayes's orbs had been of deep green. The Rescue alter ego had inherited her father's eyes – large, hazel and filled with innate wonder. She was overly curious and daring as he himself was, stopping at almost nothing to achieve her goals. She was, just like her father, odd by nature; so much so that she had been shunned by her peers at varied stages of her life – just as he had been, as well._

_** Like father, like daughter. **_

_The old saying could have not been more accurate… or at least, to a certain extent._

_ The simple fact that his daughter had caught the interest of arguably the brightest male mind in history gave the biological father some sort of weird pride. He was not even sure why he felt as if he had had some say in how Pepper had led her love life, but the fact remained that this little redheaded failed experiment of his had sprouted the final piece he had needed to make Extremis what he had always wanted it to be. It was as if he felt that his personality, or the parts that had been passed onto the girl, as well as the unnaturally strong pull the boy's Extremis had towards the strain that his and Jill's blood had granted her, had somehow been the decisive factor in Tony Stark falling for her, and only so that he, Aldrich Killian, could use their unique offspring to better his professional and personal life._

_ No. It just could not be a simple coincidence. This just __**had **__to have been a natural consequence of his master plan. Pepper Potts was alive, thanks to him. She was as successful as she was, thanks to him. She owed her good life to him. She owed everything in her life, to him._

_ The beeping signaling the test being finalized made his eyes focus once more. His pupils rapidly moved left and right, taking in every detail of the results, and he smiled widely._

_ He had done it. He had finally done it. He was cured. He was no longer ill. His life was no longer at risk._

_ And, soon enough, neither would Doom's._

xxxXXXxxx

"I'm not proud of what I did, you know?"

Maya Hansen's voice was not a surprise to the redhead. She had sensed that the brunette had been awake for some time. The botanist was due to relieve the ginger from her watch in a few minutes, anyway, so Pepper had made no mention of her awareness of the conscious state of the brunette.

"I never wanted any of this to happen to you. To Tony. To your son. To anyone, really," Maya continued when all she got from Pepper was a one-sided shrug.

"I don't know what I'd have done in your place," Pepper admitted, much to her dismay. It had been difficult for her to come to terms with the fact that the only woman she had ever called her friend had betrayed her – had taken her child after trying to kill him. But, in the end, her words were as true and honest as she could make them: who could say _no_ to Victor von Doom? Who would dare to stand in the way of the ruler of Latveria and his goal without fearing the results of said feat?

Her hazel eyes stared at the moon, and while her pose seemed relaxed, the dilation of her pupils showed that she was sensing every living thing around. This aura reading ability had been either very useful or very annoying during this entire mission. It made night watch a lot easier for her. But it had also made it difficult to tell Olivie before they had left the village that her husband was most likely dead; especially when she had seen the woman's hope and energy practically dissipate before her eyes at hearing the news about the fate of Paris.

Then again, even after the news had been delivered to Olivie, the woman had still honestly wanted to help her daughter's role model to have the tools she needed to stop the madman that was responsible for the current chaos of the world. Despite it all, Team A had left the village with supplies and food – ones that Olivie had stored away for their own use, but ones that would no longer be needed now that the _Intelli-Crop_ machine had been fixed. The device Tony had left in the family's care could do its job of providing for the village again, just as it had when he had given it to them years ago while finding buyers for Stark Solutions' newest product for saving the world. Olivie's family would not starve. The village would not starve. But Pepper knew that the small family would have preferred for the father of the unit to return home alive.

"You'd probably tell Doctor Doom to kiss your ass," the brunette's words forced Pepper to pay attention to her once again.

Maya sat on the ground, opposite to the redhead, her hands rubbing her arms up and down. The closer they had gotten to Bern, the colder the nights had become. She did not want to imagine how much worse it would be once they reached the Alps. From all the different climates Tony could have picked for them to travel through, the damn genius had to have chosen one of the coldest environments. From what she had gathered during her own research, Mount Matterhorn was an unforgiven and deadly mountain that had claimed plenty of lives already. From all the paths and mountains to choose from, Tony Stark had chosen the one peak that had killed half of the party of first hikers that had dared climbed to its top.

Pepper scoffed, her eyes returning to normal after a quick blink. "That would have been the last thing I would've said in my life, that's for sure."

"It certainly would've pissed him off."

"And he would've told me how insolent I am, and how he was going to finish me."

"Yeah," Maya nodded sharply before taking in a deep breath. "But, he wouldn't have killed you."

Pepper sneered. "Not right away, no. He'd probably torture me first. Tony told me about his castle and how it looked like the movie set up for an insane asylum."

"It did… it does. Yet… he… I doubt he could've done the job himself."

"Why?" Pepper frowned. "My bounty was the highest. That guy wants me dead."

"He does," Maya eyed the redhead. "But… but he can't kill you himself."

"Why not?"

The botanist exhaled deeply, stared at the ground, and then swallowed hard.

"You… you know how, somehow, Madame Masque and Whitney Stane got sorta… _separated_ while in The Void?"

"Yeah?"

"Well," Maya scratched the right side of her head. "When Doctor Doom was in that other dimension, with Yogthulu, something happened to him. Something similar to that. Part of him stayed there. Part of him came back. And the part that came back… He… he would never say it aloud, but I could tell the difference. James could tell. He… he came back with a weakness. A weakness he never had before."

Pepper narrowed her eyes. "And you're telling us this just _now_? Why didn't you tell Tony about it before? Dammit, Maya!"

"Wait," the brunette raised her hands in a defensive manner. "It's not something we can exploit."

"All weaknesses can be exploited."

"Not this one," Maya said with confidence. "At least not in a way that we could have taken advantage of."

"What?" Pepper rapidly shook her head from side to side. "I don't understand what you're saying. And I don't get why you're telling me this, if it doesn't matter. What's the point? What are you getting at?"

"He changed. Doctor Doom: he was changed."

"How?"

"He was tortured by Yogthulu. A lot. Like, mentally tortured."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "With what? Watching Latveria turn into a democracy? Learning that Dr. Reed Richards got another Nobel Prize? Finding out his castle is so outdated it could be turned into a museum?"

"No," Maya shook her head. "I think… I think he would've preferred that. Or at least that's what I gathered from the few times I saw him at his worst."

"Maya, you're not making any sense. What are you trying to say?"

The brunette's eyes finally locked with Pepper's, and had the redhead not had the ability to read people's real intentions and honesty, she would have never believed the next words that came out of the woman's mouth.

"You remind him of Valeria. So much. All those times he visited your home, he didn't do it _just_ so that he could learn more about you, or Tony, or even your son. He also did it because you remind him of her. Of his dead fiancée. You… I've seen recordings of her. You act and speak just like her. He hates you for it. He hates the fact that she's dead and you're alive."

"So?" the ginger tried to hide her surprise. "Why does that even matter? He still wants me dead."

"Yes. And he probably suspects that you're like James: that the Mainframe can't control you. The reason you need to know this – to REALLY think about this, is because he's going to go after you almost immediately, with everything he's got, Pepper. You have to make sure you don't trust any of us once we get there, unless it's your son."

Pepper looked away from the woman, stared at the sleeping members of her team, and then sighed.

"I can't take on all of you at once. I… won't… I don't want to hurt you all."

"You may have to," Maya replied. "You may even have to kill us to keep yourself alive. I know what it sounds like. I know that you don't want to do it. But you may very well have to. Doom is not dicking around, Pepper. He _won't_ play nice. You and James are the only two people in his way. The rest of us… we… we don't have much of a chance."

"Well," Pepper smirked once a way to avoid the difficult conversation came to her mind, "I was gonna kill you afterwards, anyway. So, that's one down, huh?"

Maya scoffed. "Yeah. I wasn't ever gonna make it back, anyway. So that leaves you with only eighteen people to worry about."

"Nineteen. Doom is number nineteen."

"Twenty," Maya said, her eyes showing that she had just realized their count was incorrect. "Aldrich is there, too."

At the mention of her biological father's name, the redhead pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

"He's immune to them, too," Maya watched the ginger from the corner of her eye. "He got the immunity from the many versions of Extremis he has injected himself with throughout the years to stay alive. He's as immune to the Mainframe's powers as you and James are."

"I better not find him, then," Pepper's voice was cold and calculated, much so as it had been when the redhead had threatened the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. upon waking up in Muir Island, or when she had pinned Maya Hansen to a wall by her neck. "That's one son of a bitch I wouldn't have second thoughts about killing. More so than Doom, actually."

"Same goes for him to you. Killian, I mean," Maya locked eyes with Pepper. "He's a coward. A weasel. He'd do and say anything to stay alive, no matter how disgusting, gruesome, cruel, deadly or unfair it may be."

"I kinda gathered that much. But thanks for the heads up, I guess."

Pepper cleared her throat, stood up from the log she had been sitting on the entire time, and then began walking towards her sleeping bag. She was grateful her night shift had just ended; she doubted she could continue engaging in a conversation she did not want to have.

"Night, Maya."

"Night, Pepper."

Maya's eyes stayed on the redhead as she got comfortable inside her sleeping bag, her back towards the botanist's current location. The brunette then waited about ten minutes to make sure that Pepper was fast asleep before she dug her left hand inside her pants pocket and took out a syringe filled with a purple liquid. The delays they had encountered so far were working against the expiration date of the serum in her hands. If they did not get to Latveria in the next ten days, her plans would be all but ruined.

She could only hope that, collectively, Nick Fury and Whitney Stane had better luck. She could only hope that Doctor Doom did what he was supposed to do to Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

xxxXXXxxx

_Even though he was, at first, not allowed to explore the castle at his leisure or by himself, his unrestricted vision ability had helped him determine how large the structure truly was. It had many floors, hundreds of rooms and, although most rooms seemed to be either empty or serve no fascinating purpose to him, there was a particular room that had caught his interest almost as soon as he had been able to locate it – enough to make him want to find a way to get there in person and see its wonders for himself._

_After all of this time being Aldrich Killian's lab rat, and after being put through all types of excruciating tests, the more he had learned about what he could do that others could not. Such as what he was doing at the moment: quietly sneaking out of his room in the middle of the night to satiate his curiosity with the likes of Castle Doom while keeping himself and his nightly activities hidden from Maya, Aldrich, Doom, and all of his metal guards._

_Long gone were the days he could barely keep himself up or break out of his crib back at home. His feet and legs were much more coordinated now, to the point that, on one recent occasion, Aldrich had had to resort to sedating him with a dart to keep him from running away from the scientist. They had been walking the halls, just the two of them, heading to the room where Aldrich tortured him, and the small child had wanted to escape another session of pain. He had seen no other way out than to run in the opposite direction they were walking towards, as fast as his legs could take him, and before he had been able to crawl inside a vent that had had a loose metal grid covering it, Killian had halted his efforts by shooting a tranquilizer into the back of his neck._

_The effects of the sedative had only lasted a few seconds – his body had filtered the attack rather quickly, much to Killian's simultaneous frustration and delight – but it had been long enough for Killian to catch up with him, lift him by the ankle, and slap the child in the face. James had not whimpered at the act; tears had not even made their way to his orbs. He had just narrowed his eyes at the man to silently show his disapproval of his actions, all in a way that had reminded the Extremis creator of a blue-eyed inventor he knew. It was astonishing to Aldrich Killian how this toddler could resemble his father so much, especially when he was forced to do something he hated – or when he felt the need to protect himself or the brunette._

_Because, yes: Aldrich Killian had been attacked before by James Howard Stark – or as much as a child could attack and wound an adult – when said man had laid a hand on the botanist in front of the heir to Stark Solutions. James really did not like anyone harming Maya Hansen. Not even Doctor Doom._

_The first and only time the boy had stood up to the cruel monarch had been a surprise to everyone – madman included. The toddler had learned a tough yet important lesson that day: do not try to attack Doctor Doom by amplifying the crippling effects of painful aura vibes within the metal man. However, a lesson had also been learned by everyone else: James Howard Stark was more than just a special child, or a carrier of Extremis – he was his father's son; in all the ways an offspring could honor his male creator._

_ Or his mother, for that matter, just as he did when his child-like strategizing paid off._

_ In other words: just as it was the case right now._

_ He held back a giggle of excitement when he reached the vent that he knew led to the room in question. It was very easy to now avoid the obstacles that had a few times before kept him from getting closer to the room. Every previous occasion he had tried to reach this room, he had been stopped by one of the many traps that kept whatever treasure held inside from being reached by anyone other than Doctor Doom. James had never seen anyone else in that room other than the man himself, so he knew that there just __**had**__ to be something in there that was worthwhile uncovering. It could be one of Doom's toys (he had as many toys as his father had). Or maybe it was a secret. A big, big secret that Doom had hidden in there for no one else to find. And the child hated knowing there were secrets being kept from him, especially when he could see everything and anything, no matter where he was._

_ His abilities had been slowly developing, thanks to Aldrich Killian's mentoring and intervention. As such, James knew that there was only a shiny, round object in the middle of the mystery room. But his still young mind told him there just __**had**__ to be in there something other than the hot, metal thing that released so much energy, day in and day out. Maybe, just maybe, that room was the best way out of this stupid place where he had been held against his will for too long._

_ He missed his parents, so much. He wanted to go back home. He could not continue waiting on Maya to tell him when it would finally be time to leave. He had waited, all this time, rather patiently for a child his age to be told they could leave this ugly place. And even though he trusted and liked Maya very much, he doubted the woman could ever get them both out of there. He knew she wanted to leave, too. He knew she was sad, scared, and miserable here, very much so as he himself was. But he also knew that Doctor Doom and Aldrich Killian would never allow them to be free from the pain they both put them through. He could see it in Aldrich, and he could see it on Doom, as well: both men enjoyed making others suffer. Both men felt the happiest when they were able to inflict pain upon those that were weaker than them. The only difference between them that young James could tell, was that although Doom was somehow the worst of the two, he at least commanded a certain level of respect, even as cruel as he was. Killian, though… James had no respect for him. He could not see how anyone could._

_ There were other exits throughout the castle, that much he knew to be true. But he also knew that, even with his abilities, he would eventually be caught by one of Doom's guards if he tried to take the typical ways out. That room in the middle, nonetheless, was not guarded by people – only by traps: traps that would have killed or at least maimed any adult trying to get through them; traps that had already cost James a few limbs, in the past few weeks. However, since his body regeneration abilities now took seconds rather than days, only he would ever know the foot or arm he had woken up with this morning would not be the same he would go to bed with tonight. Only he would learn the best way to take on the trap, the next time he came back here._

_ It would probably take him a lot more times of sneaking out at night to finally make it to the center of the room to stare at the shiny, metal thing, but he knew he could do it. And once he was able to do that, once he finally found a way around the traps and took a good look at Doom's most precious secret toy, he would tell Maya about it. He just had to. There was no reason not to tell her. He trusted her. Nothing that was this hard to get to could be pointless to get. Nothing that cost him this much time and effort could be nothing but crap._

_ "Crap," the little boy annoyingly spat the bad word he had learned from Maya when he miscalculated the timing of the next trap and saw half of his arm being chopped off by a laser grid. "CRAP!"_

_ Hopefully, Doom would not be here in the next few days to find the trail of blood. He should have brought one of those rags that Maya used on him to clean up blood. He now, begrudgingly, had to cut his fun infiltration short so that he could steal one from the lab before anyone else woke up._

xxxXXXxxx

This was an odd feeling for him; a _new_ sensation, in fact. This was the first time he had ever experienced something like this, but he was certain that this was not something he_ ever_ wanted to live through again, no matter how short the sensation had been. Or at least, it was not something he wanted to _wake up_ to once more. The swift feeling of disorientation and the absence of recent and clear memories had been momentarily both crippling and terrifying for him. Shortly after his body had woken up, he had felt panicked that he was not aware of _who_ he was, _where_ he was, or _how_ he had gotten here. However, and after a short whimper on his part, he felt a hand being placed on his chest, pushing him down onto his back. With it, part of his memories returned to him.

"Stay down, Agent," Fury's whispered voice was as authoritative as his regular-sounding one.

Despite his chief's orders, Rhodey pulled himself up, if only partly, by resting some of his weight on his bent right arm. He blinked several times, bit back the feeling of nausea that accompanied the move, took in his surroundings, and then frown as a result of what he saw.

"We broke out the tents?" his voice was a tad hoarse. "Are we… are we in Hungary?"

"No. We're in Vienna."

"V-Vienna?" Rhodey cleared his throat. "Already? That… that was quick."

"Of course, Agent Rhodes," Fury replied, a relieved smile on his face. "That's what happens when one of our own almost dies in battle and passes out for four days."

"WHAT?!"

His body snapped up out of its own accord, almost resembling the movement of a springboard on release. Had this not been the real life, Rhodey was sure that the appropriate sound effect would have accompanied his sudden move.

"I've been passed out for FOUR days?!"

Fury raised a single brow as he stood up from the ground to gather water for the finally conscious soldier. "That's _all_ you caught from my response just now?"

Rhodey's eyes moved left and right as his mind replayed Fury's words. The moment the young man's eyes became as wide as saucers, Fury knew that the _other_ important news had finally made sense to him.

"I almost died?" Rhodey's palms landed on his face, chest, arms and then his legs, patting himself all over as if checking for expected injuries or missing body parts.

"Well, technically, for the logs, you DID die. But since it was only for a few seconds, I'm willing to let it slide. There's no medal of honor waiting for you just yet, Agent Rhodes."

"H-how?" Rhodey shook his head left and right. "I… I feel fine."

"You mean you don't remember the last thing that happened to you?"

Rhodey rubbed circles around his temples with his fingertips, his eyes closed to show his deep thoughts. He took in deep breaths, shook his head once more, and then reality hit him like a slap to the face.

"Frankfurt," James eyes snapped open, "We… were in Frankfurt… the safe house… the rooftop… the… the _bombs_…"

_The missiles_, he repeated in his mind. _The… grenade…_

Rhodey swallowed hard.

"The blast pushed you off the roof," Fury handed the youngster a paper cup filled with water and a couple of medicinal pills – a combination of a painkiller and an antibiotic to keep infections and pain at bay. "Debris hit your head. Knocked you right out."

Rhodey accepted the offering from his superior and held it in his left hand while his right one touched the spot he now recalled had been hit during the explosion. He had half expected to be missing skin there; or, at the very least, to have a large bruise or a gash. To his surprise, however, all he had was a small adhesive bandage he could barely feel being there in the first place.

"Whatever Makluan voodoo medicine Mandarin concocts with his rings, I have to admit that it's remarkably effective."

"It's not Makluan," Rhodey found himself replying. "It's some ancient Chinese remedy. We… we shouldn't have used it yet."

Part of the basic medical supplies each team carried with them included a small jar of what Pepper had aptly named the _Miracle Balm_. The small amount Gene had had with him had been equally distributed amongst the four teams – to be used only in case of an emergency, and only while Doctor Ross's presence was dispatched to the site of a medical mishap. His eyes and mind told Rhodey that he was more than just OK. They told him that the use – or misuse – of the little quantity of balm they had had in hand had been rather unnecessary.

As if his reading his thoughts, Fury spoke up once more.

"You didn't see yourself after Agent Stane revived you. You looked like a victim of the Z-Gas."

For an instant, Rhodey stared at the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. with surprise, just before said man urged him to swallow down the pills already, with a rapid gesture of his hand. Without a second thought, Rhodey popped the pills inside his mouth and did just that.

"You fell into the river. Drowned. Almost got buried at the bottom of the river, under the concrete debris of buildings we'd been surrounded by. For a second there, I really thought I would have to tell Stark that I had lost his best friend. If it hadn't been for Chameleon jumping into the water as soon as we realized you'd fallen there, and for her using CPR on you even after we told her it was too late, Stark would've ripped me a new one."

Rhodey took a last sip of the water before he angrily crushed the cup in his hand. There he had been, seconds before the attack, disturbed about living a sad and meaningless life, tormenting himself with the possibility of his imminent death, and worrying about the reality of his forgone legacy; all ideas that now seemed nothing but stupid musings to have right before one really did die due to their own lack of attention. At that critical moment, when he had been supposed to be keeping guard, he had been too engrossed reminiscing about the past to the point that the sound of the incoming strike had not been clear to him until it was too late. His lack of attention, albeit if only briefly, had caused them to almost get killed, to lose precious time while tending to him and waiting for him to recover his health and consciousness, and it had also resulted in wasting plenty of their already short-supply of medical provisions. Not to mention, it now made real the abhorrent fact that the only woman that he despised the most in the world, more than Maya Hansen herself, had single-handedly pulled him back from the jaws of the Grim Reaper himself.

"When are we leaving for Hungary?" Rhodey asked, wanting nothing more than to think about anything else other than the debt he now had with the blonde. There were plenty of other questions that were also flooding his mind, such as: how bad had the damage been to the city of Frankfurt, or to the rest of the world? How much had a third bombing changed their plans? Had they received status updates from the other teams? Had they been able to send to base a notification that they were alright and in Vienna? Was Tony mad that they had had the need to unpack the single-use tents before they were supposed to do so?

Had his best female friend, Pepper Potts, finally been found?

All these were valid questions – perhaps even more important than the one he had just asked. Nonetheless, the nasty feeling of preventable remorse, combined with a sense of personal fault that was currently taking hold of his innards, made the Voice of Reason of Team B want to be everything but.

"When?" he repeated once more when he realized that he was yet to receive a response.

"As soon as you can move."

"So, right now?" Rhodey asked as he indignantly pulled away the blanket that had been on him, seconds ago; his eyes firmly locked onto the ground.

"Yeah. I guess so," Fury replied with a shrug, noticing and wondering why the younger man so suddenly appeared to be rather cross. "Right now."

The Head of S.H.I.E.L.D. unceremoniously walked outside the tent to notify the rest of the finally relieved team members that Agent James Rhodes had woken up, was alright, and ready to return to duty ASAP, leaving the Air Force graduate alone inside the shelter, stewing in his livid thoughts.

Whitney Stane had saved him. SAVED _him_. _She_ had brought _him_ back to life. Team or no team; mission or no mission, the new undeniable truth was just too much too bear for him at the moment.

_Damn it all!_

Now he owed her one.


	12. Chapter 11

**Guest Review Responses**

**Toni: I am enjoying the flashbacks through baby James eyes. Poor kid. Hope he sees his mum and dad real soon. Thanks for the chapter Miss Starfire :) **– They're cute, aren't they? I don't think I have any more of them, though :( Poor James is a brave little guy. He deserves to see his parents again… for the last time… ;) And you're very welcome! The pleasure is mine, actually. I'm already working on the next chapter. This story is wrapping up! Thank you for still being here ^_^

* * *

**Chapter 11**

"How does it feel not being able to use your powers? Is the _Oh, so Great Mandarin _not that great, anymore?"

Gene briefly narrowed his eyes at the inventor before he chuckled derisively, looked away from him, and replied in an equally venomous tone.

"Probably the same as being unable to use Extremis, Stark."

Tony smirked, happy that his desperate attempt at passing the time was being fruitful. He rested his back against the wall behind him and then crossed his arms over his chest.

"I'm more than just Extremis. I still have my brain."

"And I have twelve years of–"

"Wushu training. Gold tiger. Blah, blah. I know."

"I'm still stronger than you. Even if you had Extremis. And even _without_ the rings."

"Mind over matter, Mandarin."

"Perhaps," Gene shrugged. "But the mind is such an easy thing to… harm."

"So is a heart," Tony replied. "Easily broken. Hard to put back."

Gene Khan's frown was all the genius needed to see to realize his unintentional low jab at the Mandarin's unrequited feelings for the redhead had hit the still-sore spot.

"Ass," Gene said.

"Sorry," Tony retorted, much to Gene's surprise. The blue-eyed young man then frowned, walked to the middle of the room, sighed loudly, and then tapped the device before him. "Is this thing even on? We should've gotten a report an hour ago!"

"That high IQ of yours doesn't help with the patience, huh?"

Tony gave the half-Makluan an incredulous look before he narrowed his eyes.

"Like _you_'re not also dying to know if Pepper's team reported in Bern. Why _else _would you be here, when it's not even your time to guard the night?"

An angry exhale from Gene's nostrils was his only response and the only sound between the two men, at least until the sound of another missile hitting the city made the underground safe house shake. Both Tony and Gene looked up – towards the would-be soil of their current location in Munich, Germany – and then held back a groan of anger when yet another blast was strong enough to loosen dust particles from the ceiling and walls.

"What the fuck does Doom think he's doing, bombing cities and people like that? Who wants to take over the world only to destroy it?"

Tony's shaking fists showed the effort it was taking for him to remain away from the battle as he was. They were outnumbered; low in supplies and in weapons, comparatively speaking. Even if he wanted to help – even if he _so_ desperately wanted to do _something_ to keep more innocent people from perishing or being severely hurt – all his team could do for now was what they had been doing all along: stay hidden in the shadows, push themselves to reach Latveria, and hope that their efforts did not turn out to be in vain once they were face-to-face with the ruler of one of the very few monarchies left in the world.

"Madmen don't use logic, Stark."

Tony narrowed his eyes in deep concentration, opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then groaned before voicing his grim thoughts.

"Do you… you-you think he knows we're headed there? Think these attacks are a way to try to stop us?"

_Do you think he killed Team A already?_

The inventor also wanted to add, but he held back his tongue. It was nothing but simple speculation on his part at this point – a mere passing thought. Yet, he did not want to invoke its realization by saying the words out loud. He had already jinxed himself one too many times before, after doing just that.

"I thought about that, too," Gene found himself replying in a somber tone. "But Doom doesn't make those kinds of mistakes. If he wanted to kill us, he would've done it already. However…"

"Just because he hasn't killed us, it doesn't mean he doesn't know we're on our way," Tony took the words right out of Gene's mouth.

"Right," Gene nodded.

Tony scratched the back of his head with his right hand.

"Well, Maya was supposed to be at S.H.I.E.L.D. for just a little while. She didn't return to Latveria when she was supposed to. That's enough of a giveaway, if you ask me."

"And he _did_ also destroy the Makluan Temple. It's very likely that he does know that you and Pepper are alive."

"I guess… I guess it doesn't really matter if he does know by this point. We're seven days away from reaching Latveria. I just… I just hope that James… that he's still OK."

Gene Khan could be an ass – a ruthless killer, even, if he so wanted to or if the situation called for it. However, knowing from personal experience how difficult it was for a young boy to grow without his parents, to grow abused and overpowered by a man he could not run away from and who had also killed his mother, he could sympathize with the youngest member of the Starks – and with whatever the boy had been living through since his kidnapping.

Moreover, he would hate to see Pepper cry and mourn for her son again.

Before Gene could make any kind of retort, verbal or otherwise, the machine Tony had been hovering over, just moments ago, began buzzing into life. A couple of seconds later, the buzzing gave way to a bright light that forced both men to briefly close their eyes. Once the blinding light disappeared, Arthur Parks stood before the two men, agitated and breathing hard.

"Doombots," Arthur gasped before his knees hit the ground. His left hand landed on his chest, and he held his upper body's weight with his right palm against the cracked concrete floor of the basement they were hiding in.

"What?" a wide-eyed Tony kneeled next to Arthur.

"Doombots?" Gene asked, knowing damn well that neither Tony's nor his ears had misheard the Living Laser's raspy words. "Where are they?"

"Everywhere," Arthur said before he inhaled loudly, straightened his back, and then wiped sweat off his brow. "In every city I've zipped through getting here. Mostly major cities – the ones he hasn't completely wiped off the planet yet, at least."

"Doombots," Tony deadpanned and shook his head in anger. "DOOMBOTS and MISSILES and GRENADES and BOMBS? What's next? Fucking pirates, and ninjas, and lasers and shit?"

Arthur knew he did not have to respond, and neither Gene nor Tony forced him to do so. His face said it all.

Silently, and still in disbelief, Tony shook his head as he took a few steps away from Arthur and headed towards his backpack. From it, he fished out an energy bar and a plastic bottle of water, and then gave them to Arthur without another word. The Living Laser, while still recovering his energy by sitting on the floor and taking deep breaths, gratefully accepted the nourishment he needed at the moment. Halfway through chewing the bar, however, he almost choked on it when he remembered an important fact he had been supposed to deliver to the young Stark as soon as he found him here in Munich.

"They made it," Arthur said before he repeatedly hit his chest with his right fist and coughed, forcing the food to go down the right pipe, and refusing to let a small thing such as _the need to breathe_ from keeping him from relaying the news to the genius. "They made it to Bern. They're all alive. They made it."

_Bern_, Tony's mouth hung as his eyes locked with Arthur's. _Bern!_

There was only ONE team that had a path that sent them through Bern. In fact, now that he thought about it, there was only _ONE_ team, from all four of them, whose path would take them through Switzerland. Everyone else's path was too far away from it. Some had already gone past it, actually. In the end, and even though he did not _want_ to instantly get his hopes up and jump to conclusions, the reality of the matter was that Arthur could only be speaking about Team A's whereabouts.

"You…" Tony swallowed hard. "You sure?"

"Yes," Arthur nodded fiercely before the other half of the bar disappeared in his mouth.

"How sure?" Gene asked, also not wanting to readily accept the good news as a fact of life. Now that they had been on the road for a while, the level of devastation had become that much realer to all of them. The hope that Team A had somehow survived such a terrible attack in Paris had almost ceased to exist within him.

"Super sure," Arthur held his palm up after his answer, chugged down the remaining water, and then cleared his throat. "They're about two or three days behind, and said they were going to pick up the pace. But they're fine. Perfectly fine. Last I saw them, they were getting ready to head to the Alps."

"You… you saw them?" Tony kneeled before Arthur and held the man by his shoulders. "Are they OK? Did they look OK to you? Did… did…"

"She's fine," Arthur smiled, knowing the well-earned relief his words would bring to the inventor. He knew that Tony had been beating himself up, all this time, for what they had all believed had happened to the young man's wife. They all knew that he was blaming himself for anything that could have happened to her and her team.

"She's fine, Tony," Arthur continued, "She… she actually gave me something. She asked me to give this to you."

"What?" Tony's wide eyes were everywhere on Arthur's form, frantic to see on him what it was that Pepper had sent his way. To his surprise, the item in question was nothing more than half a sheet of paper, but he still desperately took it from Arthur's hand and unfolded it with shaky hands.

It took the genius a moment to decipher the multiple strings of numbers he was seeing, but once he interpreted the binary code on the paper, he closed his eyes and smiled.

"Can you read that?" Arthur asked as he stood up from the floor.

"Yeah," Tony nodded and exhaled in relief.

"Everything OK?" Gene asked, almost not being able to deny the curiosity he had about what type of message the redhead had sent to the inventor for him to react this way.

"Yes. Everything's fine," Tony replied, opened his eyes, and a look of boundless determination suddenly appeared on his face. He folded the paper carefully, walked to his backpack to put away the message in one of the front pockets of it, and then returned his attention to Arthur Parks.

"I'm sorry to do this to you," Tony began, "I know you're tired. But… But if we have Doombots running around now, the rules have changed."

"Yeah," Arthur nodded. He had already anticipated for the original plans to be sent down the drain. "Team A said they may have to avoid Venice altogether. They said they'll try to stick to the path you gave them, but that if Pepper sensed Doombots nearby, they would go around them."

"Good," Tony nodded sharply before he rummaged through his backpack to locate the route map. Once found, he wasted no time unfolding it, laying it flat on the floor, and then using his walkie-talkie to wake up the rest of the team and call them over to where he, Arthur, and Gene now kneeled on the floor. Bruce Banner, Jean Grey and Rogue were all on their knees by their leader's side in just a few moments – looking more wide awake than anyone would have expected them to be near sunrise.

Then again, with the ruckus taking place above them, a peaceful sleep had evaded them most of the night.

"What's going on? What changed? Is Team A OK?"

Bruce was the first one to break the silence when he saw that Arthur was there with them. It was not part of the plan for Arthur Parks to stay with a team for longer than it took him to relay the status of other teams, or to gather a team's current location. If Tony had deemed it appropriate for the Living Laser to remain longer than anticipated, and for Tony's face to look as filled with purpose as it did, it was almost certain to Bruce that something major had taken place while they had been trying to sleep.

"Team is A fine," Tony relayed to his team.

"Really?" Jean smiled with hope.

"Really," Arthur nodded. "Everyone else is, actually. Team B had some… _issues_ in Frankfurt, but… but they're fine. After they visited the safe house in Vienna, they stayed in the outskirts of the city today."

Tony's head snapped towards Arthur, suddenly feeling selfish and stupid for not asking about the other teams as well.

"What about Team C?" an image of gigantic Twinkies briefly crossed the inventor's mind.

"They're also behind," Arthur stared at the map, his finger hovering over it until he found the location of Kassel, Germany. "They were in the safe house here, yesterday. They only stayed for half a day, though. Doombots showed up."

"Doombots?" Rogue stared left and right, brow furrowed. From all the training they had received while in Muir Island, no one had ever cared to mention the term: Doombot. Or at least, not near her, they had.

"What the hell is a Doombot?"

"Doctor Doom robotic look-a-likes," Gene answered the confused mutant.

"They're above us right now," Arthur added, and the other members of Team D held back a groan. "Team C said they're going to continue on to Vienna and then head straight to Budapest. But," Arthur shrugged, "I stopped at Budapest on my way here… they should go around it."

"Let me guess," Gene arched a single eyebrow, "More Doombots?"

Arthur grimaced with a nod.

"Can we use the _Earth Movers_ from now on?" Bruce asked the inventor.

"No," Tony shook his head. "T'Challa's mission is to get them to the final checkpoint. We can't risk exposing them until then. It's the only way we have to get into Castle Doom underground."

"So, how are we gonna evade these… Doombots?" the new word sounded so ridiculous in Rogue's brain.

"Avoid the major cities," Arthur suggested. "When I saw them in Kassel, I visited all the other safe houses. The only place I didn't see them in was at the final checkpoint, in Hungary. Every other place… even in Venice… there's armies of them, walking the streets."

"But," Jean shook her head in denial, her role as the voice of reason immediately kicking in, "Avoiding the safe house means we won't have any supplies. No supplies means no food and no water. No food or water means we won't be in the best shape to fight off a madman and his army of robots."

"But facing Doombots means _Game Over_, Jean," Bruce begrudgingly admitted. "Even if we _could_ potentially fight our way through them, we would only be wasting even more energy and resources that we don't already have."

"But without food," Jean argued back, "We won't have the energy to fight Doom, even if we got to Latveria in one piece! Might as well give up now!"

"We're not giving up," Tony said sternly, Jean's words stinging him more than anyone cared to realize. "The last thing we'll do is give up."

"But Tony," Jean sighed, "Think about this… We… our next stop is at the final checkpoint. We have barely enough rations to last us. The other teams," she pointed at the locations of the other safe houses. "They each all have one _more _place to stop by before they reach Kübekháza. They won't make it there without food. Especially not Team A – they're hiking the freaking Alps!"

"Team A is fine," Arthur reassured them. "They avoided Paris, but they ended up in a village outside of it. Pepper… she said that they got loads of food there. She said something about someone there having an… Intel… crop?"

Tony faced the Living Laser with wide eyes. "Do you mean: _Intelli-Crop_?"

"Yeah! That's what it was!"

"OK," Tony's eyes practically showed his brain processing all the information he was gathering now. "So… if they stopped at a place with a working _Intelli-Crop_ machine, then Team A is definitely fine."

"What's an In–"

"A machine that I invented that engineers the best types of hybrid seeds for growing loads of crops in any type of land. It was the first major invention Stark Solutions released globally after we bought out Hammer Multinational," Tony barraged his answer to Rogue.

"Slow down, Sugar," Rogue's southern accent reminded Tony of his pilot, Jonas. "Not all of us can understand you like your gal does."

"It just means Team A is set for food until they get to Hungary," Gene replied.

"But what about the other two teams?" Jean rubbed circles on her temples. "We still don't have a solution for that."

"The protein bars are supposed to give you energy boosts and make you feel full for longer," Bruce began. "Maybe, if they eat only half, they'll be OK until Kübekháza."

"Sure," Jean Grey sighed, "But the creators of the bars assumed normal activity conditions. Half a bar may be OK for someone who can't make lunch break during their desk job. But it'll do nothing for Team B and Team C's energy levels while traveling at a faster pace and through longer paths, now that they may have to avoid major cities."

"But _half_ energy while trekking for long periods of time is better than depleting _all _of their energy trying to fight off Doombots to get to the safe houses for supplies," Bruce contended.

"Well, then… maybe they should sneak into the safe houses… at night or something," Rogue suggested.

"There's no sneaking into them," Arthur admitted. "I only got in and out without being seeing by Doombots because I'm fast as light and used the power lines."

"Well," Rogue began, "Can't you do that with the food in your hands? As in, sneak in there, grab some supplies and then… _energy_ your way out?"

"I don't know," Arthur shrugged. "Tony? Tony, what do you think?"

"The food most likely wouldn't survive the conversion," Tony replied. "Besides, doing that to you will add extra weight and increase the work on you. It'll just make you use up more energy than… more energy than…"

Suddenly, the answer to half of their current issues befell the blue-eyed inventor. The word had been uttered so many times just now, and in so many contexts, that he felt like an idiot for not realizing its major implication until now.

_Energy_, Tony's eyes landed on the machine from which Living Laser had popped out.

"Energy!" Tony stood up with a start. "That's it!"

"What's it?" Rogue again looked left and right.

"I can't guarantee that the food would make it through the conversion," Tony flipped over his backpack to spill the contents within it, "But when we had that first bombing at the island, Arthur got some of us to safety by taking us with him through the power lines. The suit that made Arthur who he is today was designed to convert matter into energy, but my dad focused his efforts on _human _matter and clothing fabrics, not anything else."

"Yeah, so?" Jean vaguely recalled being informed this had been the case for some of the members of the resistance when they had been caught by surprise at the start of Doom's war.

"I can… _maybe_…" Tony began picking out his tools from the mess he had poured out of his bag. "Maybe I can modify Arthur's suit to minimize the feeling of the added load and increase the energy support to account for an extra passenger."

"Tony…" Bruce shook his head, already seeing where the genius was heading with his explanation. "The effects of the teleportation on regular humans are unpredictable. You were mostly fine after it, because you had Extremis activated at the time, even if just a little bit of it. Maya, and everyone else who was teleported by Arthur that time, were feeling unwell for days!"

"Yes, I know. But if Arthur can get us to the final checkpoint ahead of time, then we would have enough days to recover before hitting Latveria."

"I, _what_?" Arthur's eyes bulged. "Tony, I… I don't wanna hurt anyone."

"I'm with Bruce," Jean intervened. "How is this any different than not stopping at the safe houses for supplies? Teleporting with Arthur will make us sick, too!"

"Illness and hunger are only an issue when we have no way to stop them," Tony reasoned, already hard at work building a device to attach to Arthur Park's suit. "The _Earth Movers_ are FILLED with supplies. T'Challa should already be really close to the final checkpoint. We… we'd just be meeting him sooner rather than later."

"But you said the food wouldn't convert properly," Gene interjected. "That means that we'd be forfeiting the food and water we already have with us if we travel with Arthur."

"That's a possibility," Tony admitted, sparing his team only a quick glance before continuing his tinkering. "But it's the lesser of two evils. The food may or may not make it there. But _we_ get to Kübekháza ahead of schedule, we get a few days to rest and recover from the teleportation, and we avoid these fucking Doombots and other attacks until we get to Doom's castle."

Everyone else in the room stared at one another, slowly and silently making sense of Tony's crazy new plan. Bruce then stared at the map once more, made some mental calculations of dates and time zones while perusing it, and then frowned.

"OK, let's say we go for it..."

"No!" Jean stood up from the floor. "This is insane!"

"Wait," Bruce lifted his arms in a placating gesture. "Just… let's hypothesize the situation for a second."

"How are we going to get everyone else?" Gene stood up as well, spouting out the same question Bruce Banner had been about to pose.

"Team B might still be near Vienna," Tony reasoned.

"What about the Doombots?" Rogue asked.

"Last I checked, Vienna had none," Arthur replied, purposefully and for the inventor's sake, leaving out of the conversation the fact that Team B could very well still be camping near Vienna for another day or two to make sure Rhodey was ready to trek again. At least, that had been the impression he had gotten from Nick Fury himself.

"But they _may_ have them _now_," Jean suggested.

"But they may _not_," Tony retorted.

"Team C should be visiting Vienna tomorrow or the day after that, depending on how far behind they are," Gene pointed out.

"And if we miss them, they might still stop in Budapest," Tony said before cursing aloud when another shake of the ground above them made him drop his screwdriver.

"What about Team A?" Rogue stared at Arthur. "You said Venice had Doombots, too."

"And Team A already plans to avoid Venice if Pepper sensed Doombots there," Jean sighed. "Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that Pepper _will_ be able to tell they're around."

"Think Team A is still in Bern?" Tony asked the Living Laser.

"Maybe, I don't know. They knew they needed to pick up the pace. They may be in the Alps already."

"Then we check for them in Venice, just in case. And if they avoid it, we wait for them in Hungary."

The silence that followed Tony's response was broken only by the inventor himself after he finished the new device that would help the Living Laser teleport the members of the resistance to Kübekháza.

"Alright, Arthur," Tony said as he attached the device to the man's suit. "You won't feel any different, and it won't hurt you either. In fact, you might feel a little lighter and faster now."

"We're doing this?" Jean asked.

"Yup," Tony replied before he began putting away his scattered belongings.

"Even after all the drawbacks we just listed, _and_ the fact that we might not even get Team A to be teleported to Hungary, we're still doing this?"

"Yes," Tony answered. "Go get your things, everyone. We're leaving right now."

"But," Jean shook her head. "Tony–"

"Don't you want to see Scott?" the inventor stared at the redhead before eying the southern woman standing next to her. "Gambit? Everyone else?"

"Yeah, but–"

"We have no choice," Gene's support for Tony's plan was unexpected for the genius. "It's stupid, and crazy, and reckless. But so is continuing to walk amidst these attacks and robots we didn't account for. The only thing that would we better than this would be for _me_ to teleport us there, but Doom's technology would detect my energies and he'd know we were right on his doorstep. Next to that, the best option would be to fly there – but we know there's no way to just _fly _to Latveria without being spotted and shot down."

"Or," Rogue shrugged, "If this new plan was always an option, we could have just done it from the start to get us to Latveria and saved us a lot of time."

As soon as the words left Rogue's lips, everyone's eyes landed on Tony's form. The look of shock on his face was evidence that he had not even considered this idea as a possible means of getting to Latveria until now. The looks on everyone _else_'s face at learning this fact showed how unamused they currently were at his blunder.

"Huh," Tony gulped, his left hand embarrassingly rubbing the back of his neck. "Oops?"

"Mind over matter, huh?" Gene spat after a short pause.

"Yeah," Tony cleared his throat. "My bad. You-you can kick my ass after this. I won't even fight back."

"You wish," Gene narrowed his eyes. "I'll just let_ Pepper_ do _that_."

Tony's bashful groan was his only response, guilt instantly filling him at recognizing the appalling repercussions of his own stupid act. Pepper's team was currently trekking the Alps, in the middle of winter storms, only because he had not thought about using Living Laser's abilities to get them to Castle Doom in the shortest amount of time. He had immediately seen the energy man as a way to keep the team in contact, but not as a way to take the team from point A to point B. He had dropped the ball, in the worst of ways, and he had sent his redhead to take the most perilous path of them all, all under the belief that it would keep her from being spotted and being somewhat safe.

In truth, part of that had probably been because he had forgotten that Arthur Parks was even still around for the longest time, and so had not really taken the time to dwell on his condition further since seeing him again on Muir Island. He had once told Maya that he had had to watch the Living Laser die three times. But shortly after the third time, he had received a text message from the man, telling him that he was alive and laying low. Other than the guilt he carried for not being able to cure him, Parks had mostly been out of the inventor's mind for the past few years.

In addition, the thought of altering Arthur's energy composition to allow safe travel with another person with minimal side-effects had simply not occurred to him. The Mandarin could not teleport them to Latveria because Doom would detect his Makluan energies; Nightcrawler could not take them there because he had to have seen or visited a location first, or risk severe injury or death upon arrival when teleporting blindly. Living Laser's energy conversion caused negative side-effects to anyone he carried along as a passenger, but the Laser's condition was science-based, and that meant something could be done about it – he had simply never thought of _fixing_ the complications involved.

How he had missed such a clever, simple, and _obvious_ solution during his cautious planning was beyond him; beyond everyone, in fact. If he could have, and if he had known that the action would not have any negative effects on their plan, he would have run his head through a wall just about now. He did not deserve to be calling the shots. He should have just given up being the leader of this counter-offensive before they had left Muir Island and they would probably be in better shape for it right now.

High IQ? Genius? Technology inventor? Fuck a bunch of that! His early mockery of Gene's powers being out of reach had turned around and had slapped him in the face.

Him? Tony Stark? A leader? He was everything but.

But then, just as quickly as the thought of giving up on his leadership post and passing it on to someone else entered his mind, the message that Pepper had sent via Arthur Parks returned to him… And he felt his pity party vanish, even if just for now. There was no reason to pout about his mistake at the moment. If the idea had been really _that_ simple and _that_ obvious, someone other than he would have pointed it out way before Rogue had mentioned it just now.

He was aware that this did not absolve him, though. He knew that this did not change the fact that he had messed up. He knew that if someone perished in this fight, he would forever carry the blame of it on his shoulders – even if no one else blamed him for it, and if even if the death was not related to the travel method itself, which was the issue at hand. Once in Latveria, anything could happen, and the means of transportation would have no bearing on what happened during the actual fight.

Yet, Tony Stark being who he was, knew that he would always wonder if they would have been better suited and better prepared for fighting Doctor Doom on his turf if they had been teleported to the final checkpoint directly from Muir Island, rather than walking their asses there. However, he also knew that there would be, or so he hoped, more appropriate opportunities later on to pity and blame himself for not thinking about this idea sooner. Now was _not _the time to think about it – or the time to relinquish the responsibility he already had.

"_I love you, jerk. Don't give up."_

Despite everything bad and depressing taking place around him, Pepper's message made him inwardly smile.

xxxXXXxxx

They were already behind, all thanks to him, so when Nick Fury had suggested they waited in Vienna for Team C's arrival, no one had batted an eye. Then again, even if he himself had verbally stated his belief that the idea was stupid – that the concept of wasting even more time for a team that could also be as behind on schedule as his was, Nicholas Joseph Fury was still the leader of the team and his superior at S.H.I.E.L.D. It would have been even more of a waste of time to try to start an argument he knew he would lose before it even got a chance to start.

Then again, _again_, perhaps strength in numbers was what they would need from now on, seeing as the attacks were becoming more and more reckless, prolonged and intense. Even in the dead of night, the sound of bombings would not stop – not even slow down a bit. Even if they were a few miles outside of Vienna, the sounds of war were as clear to James Rhodes as if they were originating a few feet away from him.

He closed his eyes and tried his best to ignore the sounds of innocent people dying at the hands of Doom's attack while he just laid here on the grass and kept vigil on his team's slumber. Nonetheless, the fact remained that War Machine was as useless to anyone as a winter coat would be at noon in the desert.

"Closing your eyes is probably not the best way to guard our sleep."

Rhodey's eyes snapped open, but he did not move or look at the blonde in the eye. He was still to come to terms with the fact that this woman had saved him, nursed him back to health, and advocated for him against Nick Fury himself to get some rest in the past few days, all the while he had been loathing and damning her mere existence in his life. Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for him and his dignity, Roberta Rhodes had raised him with better manners than he had hoped to have at this point in time.

Unceremoniously, the male agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. sat up on the ground, locked eyes with the woman, and then bit down his pride.

"Thank you," he swallowed hard and ignored the churning feeling in his belly at speaking words of gratitude to the blonde. "For saving my life, Agent Stane. Thank you."

The look of surprise on her face was not lost to him.

"I…" she looked away from him, stared beyond his position on the ground and towards the rest of the sleeping team, and she then bit on her upper lip. "I mean… yes. Of course, Agent Rhodes. It was nothing. Don't mention it. It's… it's what we're supposed to do."

Rhodey gave the woman another moment for her to collect her thoughts, compose herself, perhaps even to tell him what the hell she was doing awake when her turn to guard the night was not for another hour or so. But when she continued to stand there and fidget uncomfortably, Rhodey returned his back to the ground. He had just swallowed his ego and hatred for her to thank her as earnestly as he could have possibly done so: what more could she want now? Until he got an opportunity to return the unsolicited favor and settle his debt to her, Whitney Stane could go fuck herself, for all he cared.

The sound of her footsteps would have otherwise informed him that she was retreating to her sleeping bag, but given that her stomps were getting louder, and that the ground underneath him was slightly shaking with each passing step, Rhodey soon realized he was now in the undesirable company of his most hated enemy – Doctor Doom notwithstanding.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he would have very much _preferred_ to ask Victor von Doom on a fucking blind coffee date – perhaps even take him to a movie afterwards. They would probably have more in common, or at least more to talk about, than he and Whitney Stane did.

However, after five minutes of silence and against his better judgement, Rhodey found himself starting up a conversation with the blonde.

"How did he die?"

"Excuse me?" she frowned in confusion even though it was obvious to her that Rhodey could not see her face from his vantage point. She was sitting a few feet behind him, and his head was propped up by his arms under it, leaving him with no way to look at her unless his neck shifted around.

"Your dad," Rhodey clarified. "How did your dad die?"

The long silence that followed his question made it clear to him that the inquiry had hit a sore spot. Nevertheless, Rhodey figured, if he had to deal with the unwanted presence of the Stane girl within breathing range, then she would have to deal with the uncomfortable questions he knew he could pose to her.

To his surprise, the woman calmly began her response.

"His body gave up on him," she gulped. "The lack of movement got to him. His old age got to him. The fall got to him. He just… he just never improved. By the time I decided to pull the plug, no organ was working on its own anymore. He had an artificial respirator. A machine for his kidneys and liver. His legs and arms had begun developing sores and gangrene. The nurses… they had to clean his tongue… scrape it from dead tissue, almost every day. His body just… gave up. It… it gave up long before I did."

Once again, Whitney Stane almost made him regret his bitter thoughts and feelings about her.

Damn. Her.

When he had found out about what Whitney had done to Pepper, and knowing that Obadiah Stane was still in a coma, Rhodey had considered the idea, and had waited and waited for the chance, of spitting scornful and insulting words about the fate of her father to her face, even if just to have something to hurt her with, as much as she had hurt the girl whom he considered to be his sister. The Madame Masque persona would have surely been enraged to be so openly mocked for something that was dear to her heart. Chameleon, on the other hand, sounded just as pained about the loss of the only parent she had had as much Rhodey figured he would be if his father or mother had suffered the same misfortune.

He could only imagine how hurtful it would be for anyone to helplessly see one's parent in the same deplorable and decaying condition Whitney had just described her father had been in. The worst of it all, however, was the fact that, while he would have another parent, close friends, and other family members willing to help see him through the agony and mourning, Whitney Stane had no one else in the world to support her. Her father had been the last family she had had, and he had left her all alone in this world, and not too long ago.

He opened his mouth to apologize for his insensitive question, but he instead pursed his lips once more. No good would come from him apologizing for what was already said and done. No level or amount of apologies would bring her father back to her, anyway.

He thought about ending the awkward discussion there, but before he could call it quits, Whitney surprised him with a question of her own.

"After this… if we make it out alive… what are you going to do? Do you have any major life plans?"

"I…" his voice trailed for an instant, shocked that he was giving serious thought to a question from this woman. He had been pondering this very question himself, the last time he had been guarding his team, but even after almost kissing the hands of death, James Rhodes was still uncertain about what to do with his life.

"Not sure?" she offered, and he shook his head.

"No," he admitted to her. "Not really. Depends on what happens, I guess. You? What are your plans?"

Whitney chuckled bitterly, stretched her numbed legs, and then rested her weight on her hands behind her back.

"Me? Oh, yeah! I have big plans! I will be S.H.I.E.L.D.'s loyal slave until the day I die."

In spite of himself, Rhodey lifted his head from his arms, pivoted his neck, and then frowned at her. The blonde pursed her lips, half shrugged, and then looked towards the sky.

"That was the deal: my unconditional lifetime service to S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of being tried and sentenced for what I did to Pepper, to Howard Stark, and to countless other people as Madame Masque."

"Really?" Rhodey arched a single eyebrow.

"Really," Whitney retorted with a curt nod.

"Is that why you're here then? Because you owe it to S.H.I.E.L.D. that a jury didn't give you the electric chair?"

"I'm here because it is my duty as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. But I took the deal to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. because I owed it to the memory of my father. To myself. To Pepper and Tony. To you. All of you trusted me – wanted to see me become a better person. But I let all of you down when I allowed the mask to take over me. The least I could do for the people who thought better of me was to join S.H.I.E.L.D. To put my skills to good use and help those that can't help themselves. I thought maybe, if my father ever woke up someday, that Fury might let me go so that I could care for him, and we could both start anew. But, he's dead now. So now my only goal is to right my wrongs, and protect others from being wronged by people like me. That's… that's really why I'm here."

The two agents remained quiet after her response: Whitney wondering if she would ever regain Rhodey's, Tony's, or even Pepper's trust; and Rhodey trying to gauge how honest her answer of just now had been. Their quiet musings were interrupted when Rhodey's watch beeped to signal the end of night guard, and he wasted no time standing up from the ground. He patted his clothes clean off dust and leaves, and then began walking towards his sleeping bag. He was only able to take a handful of steps, however, before he voiced a somber thought to the blonde.

"Well, look on the bright side, Whitney. If you die in Latveria, you won't be their slave for too long."

Despite it all, she laughed aloud at his retort, only much later noticing that, for the second time since finding out that she was alive, Rhodey had once again addressed her by her first name. She did not believe that he had even noticed that he had, but she knew that _he_ would notice if she used his nickname to address him.

Perhaps another day. Perhaps another time.

"Always so full of optimism, aren't we?" she said after she calmed down a tad.

"Almost dying would do that to you."

"So I've been told," she replied. "But don't worry, Agent Rhodes: I won't let you die."

"So I've been told," he answered after a pause, eyed the blonde one last time, and then quietly returned to his bedroll, purposefully failing to bid her goodnight.

Dying in Latveria to be freed from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s deal would have sounded somewhat appealing to her, if she did not already have a mission to fulfill during this war; a personal and rather important assignment that had been bestowed upon her by the brunette girl.

Maya Hansen, _and_ Nick Fury too, to some extent, had entrusted her to see it through to the end. And by golly: she, Whitney Julieta Stane, would _not_ fail at this task.

Tony Stark, when deemed appropriate, would expire by her hand.

xxxXXXxxx

_She watched from behind the wheel of the patrol car as the bouncers of __**The Boom Boom Room**__ brought the young man out through the front door of the building's first floor. She checked herself in the rear-view mirror, making sure nothing would give her away. As usual, the effect was flawless, and she knew that she would succeed. She needed to; this was the first official assignment Fury had put her on, and she knew it was only the first step. _

_She opened the car door and stepped out, approaching the front door of the establishment with a walk that signified boredom, but purpose. She saw that the bouncers were not really needing to restrain Kevin very much. He was clearly drunk, and judging by the clothing he was wearing – which was neither the right size for him nor matching – the report that had gone out to the local PD dispatch had been accurate. _

"_Good evening," she said to the men in her new, deep voice. The new mask was working as perfectly as the old._

"_Evening, officer. This is the guy, here," one of the bouncers, a large man with a bald head and mustache, gave Kevin Kowalowski a little shake. Whitney made a show of raising her eyebrow at the look of the fellow she was here to take into custody._

"_He really stripped naked in the women's restroom and tried to assault a woman who went in?" _

_The bouncers nodded at the question. "Yes, sir. Not just any woman either: it was Pepper Potts."_

_Whitney already knew this to be the case, but played along. The bouncers witnessed the eyebrows of the tall, African-American police officer shoot up at hearing that statement. _

"_Tony Stark's wife?"_

"_Yup."_

_Whitney shook her head in disbelief, but inside she was struggling not to laugh. She was sure that the situation was a lot more complicated that what had been reported through dispatch. She would have to find out later._

"_Boy, you are lucky to be alive, trying to come on to Rescue like that. She might have blasted your junk clean off. Never mind what Iron Man might have done to you."_

_She took out a pair of handcuffs from the belt the cop outfit came with, and approached Kevin, turning him around as the bouncers stepped back slightly to let the officer work._

"_What's your name, son?" Kevin did not respond with more than a grunt and moan, and started to sway when the bouncers let go of him._

"_We got his clothes out of the toilet bowl in the restroom he was in,' one of the bouncers held up a plastic bag filled with soaked garments. "Found his wallet in there. His name's Kevin Kowalowski." _

_Whitney nodded. "Well, Kevin Kowalowski, you're under arrest for public lewdness and sexual assault." _

_She proceeded to read him his Miranda rights, thanked the bouncers, and then marched Kevin back to the patrol car. After putting him in the back seat – where he proceeded to pass out – Agent Stane got behind the wheel and began driving away to the rendezvous point, where Hawkeye and Black Widow would be waiting. Afterward, she and her mentors would take Kevin to the Helicarrier to be interrogated. _

_Yes, it seemed her first mission was a success. _

xxxXXXxxx

The many simulations in the VTR did not do justice to the actual and current extreme weather in the Alps, even with the added protection they had picked up in Bern before taking on the treacherous mountain range. The layers upon layers of clothes they now wore felt quite inadequate at keeping the raging snow and the frigid wind gusts from chilling them straight to their bones. Their backpacks felt heavier and heavier by the second, and not just because snow kept piling on them, but also because their bodies were having a tough time staying balanced and at a decent body temperature.

The only saving grace, so far, was that they had managed to avoid encountering any Doombots.

As opposed to their practice runs, this time, it was Bobby Drake who was at the front of the five-person parade. He was in full ice mode, and even_ he_ could feel the unyielding and unforgiving rage of the inclement climate around them. He could not imagine what his team members were currently experiencing underneath their thick garments, but he knew it had to be at least ten times as worse as he felt it to be – and he felt like _shit_. Nevertheless, he soon realized that he did not have to imagine the effort it was for them to continue walking in the middle of a blizzard when Maya Hansen suddenly dropped to her knees.

The brunette felt as if her lungs, nose, and throat were freezing from the inside out. Her arms and legs shook as if she had run five marathons, back-to-back and nonstop. Yet, they had only been trekking around the icy mountain for half a day. The first thirty-six hours at the Alps had been uneventful and kind of pleasant, but they now knew that the stroke of good luck they had experienced so far had simply been the calm before the storm; literally and metaphorically.

And to think, they still had about two more days of this; two days that had been charted and calculated to be just one more day with the assumption that the weather would be bad, but not as awful as it currently was.

"I can't," Maya coughed loudly and held her throbbing head between her hands. "I can't do this… I… Sorry. I can't."

The other four members of the team looked at one another – or as much as they could in the midst of the barraging snow. Bobby looked ahead of himself, and then towards the hyperventilating brunette, before he began undoing the ties of the rope around his waist.

"I'll carry her."

"No," Natasha shook her head. "You need to be available to protect Pepper at all times. Doombots may be around."

Bobby narrowed his eyes at the older redhead.

"Last time I did that, you bitched at me for killing the three of you."

"Let's not start anything, alright?" Pepper immediately intervened, something that was easy to do, since she had been walking between Bobby and Natasha.

"We're not," Bobby replied. "Unless Natasha tells me NOT to help Maya and instead gives us a better idea than standing here in the middle of this storm."

The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. returned the glare the member of the X-Men was offering her, but before she could open her mouth to speak, Nightcrawler spoke up first.

"I'll carry her."

"Kurt, no," the botanist tried to protest, but she could barely breathe.

"It's no problem," Nightcrawler began untying his ropes. "I'm closer to you, anyway. It makes more sense for me to help you than Iceman maneuvering his way back here."

"Heard the _Voice of Reason_?" Natasha began. "Let him do his job and let us carry on."

"Are you sure, Kurt?" Bobby's frown of concern was visible, even in his ice form.

"Yes," Kurt replied as he easily adjusted the brunette's position to rest on his back. "Back in my country, when I was young, I used to help the mules carry bags of sugar. I sometimes even carried the _mules_."

"I heard that," Maya whined.

"I said it loud, did I not?" Kurt said in an obvious teasing tone, channeling Bobby's previous jab at the botanist, knowing that some light humor was sorely needed by the team at this point in time.

"What does _that_ make _me_?" Maya asked despite herself. "The sugar or the mule?"

"Pick one," Bobby yelled from his position at the front of the line. "But last I checked, Nightcrawler wasn't a mule."

"Bite me, Drake!" Maya spat with more energy that she had believed she had.

"Don't dare him," Pepper said, a small smile on her face. "He might just take you on it!"

Even the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. had to laugh at that.

xxxXXXxxx

"So, what you have to remember to do, though," Happy continued his tale between bites, "Is that, before you stick the blade in its neck, you have to put a little bowl underneath the goat to gather up the blood. You can use it as some sort of gravy for the meat, or you can use it as its own side dish. I prefer it as a side dish. It ends up looking like ground beef, but it tastes _so_ much better."

"I don't believe I have ever had the chance to try that," Jarvis replied. "I've had my fair share of hunting opportunities when I was in active duty, but I don't believe delicatessen goat was ever on the list of options."

"My dad loves to hunt," Happy shook the piece of meat in his hand with every word spoken. "I've hunted alongside him for, like, ever. I've taken down rabbits, quail, armadillo, deer, elk, ducks, goats… even hogs. But hogs are nasty! They stink and aren't really that good for eating."

"Well, thankfully for us, deer are in order around here, and not hogs," Jarvis pointed to the already cooked game that Hawkeye had helped take down for them tonight. Having a former Olympic archer on their team had turned out to be a great asset when they had first realized, upon arrival to the checkpoint, that they would have to resort to hunting down food sources, _without _calling much or any attention to themselves. At this point, nevertheless, the team doubted that any of their shooting noises would have been at all noticed by civilians – they were too busy fleeing the city or avoiding Doom's constant attacks. When they had arrived in Vienna, not twenty-four hours ago, there had not been that much activity around the city. In the past twelve hours, though, the attacks had begun growing in scale, forcing the team to circle around their assigned checkpoint.

Being behind schedule despite their short-lived stay at their previous checkpoint had made it difficult to reach the Vienna safe house as a group, especially now that the Doombots presence they had encountered in Kassel had reached Vienna, leaving them with little opportunity to get any food supplies from the location. As a result, the team had decided to send Maria Hill and Beast to the city to try to collect at least their medical supplies and to notify the other teams that they were in route, while Hawkeye, Jarvis, and Happy Hogan took care of finding something to eat and setting up camp to rest for the night.

The deer had been killed, skinned, gutted, prepared for cooking and roasted over their small camp fire, a long time ago. The rest of their team, however, was yet to return from their attempt at reaching the safe house in the chaos that was now the city of Vienna. Maria and Hank had left the campsite about six hours ago; gutting a deer, and talking and listening about hunting had kept the three men busy for a while. But when one hour of waiting turned to six, and the sounds of war and destruction were all around you, it became more and more difficult to stay on task – to remain calm and pretend that you were not worried about the fate of your teammates, or that you were not dying to rush into the city to help out.

And Clint Barton, despite his neutral-looking face throughout the entire waiting period, had had just about enough.

"We should go searching for them," the archer, who had been quietly listening to his teammates exchange hunting stories, stood up from his spot on the ground.

"Or we should wait until the morning. If they're not back by then, we should keep going to Budapest."

Jarvis's retort almost made Happy choke on his food.

"What?" Hawkeye narrowed his eyes at the older man.

"Agent Hill and Dr. McCoy are capable of taking care of themselves," Jarvis calmly replied. "They know the plan, the paths, the timeline, and the location of our camp. They have their supplies, their walkies, _and_ their skills. If they're unable to return by morning, for whatever reason, it's only sensible that we proceed as planned. They will catch up with us when they can."

Hawkeye opened his mouth to reply, made some unintelligible sounds, and then shook his head from left to right.

"Hogan," Clint directed his attention to the youngest member of the group. "Pack up your things. We're going into the city."

"Uhm," Happy's eyes darted from Clint's to Jarvis's before he pointed towards the Stark family butler. "I'm actually with J, on this one. Agent Hill is no pushover, or a weakling. And Beast is… well, _Beast_. They're probably fine."

"_Probably_ fine?" Hawkeye was unable to believe his ears. "Am I the only one worried about them?"

"Of course not," Jarvis stood up. "But rushing into the city isn't going to help them, or our ultimate plans. There are many non-dangerous reasons we could choose from for why they haven't returned yet. Maybe they decided that it would be best to stay there for the rest of the night. Maybe they will wait until just before dawn to return. We don't know if they made it to the safe house, or if they're still there, or if they're even thinking of staying in there tonight. But we _do_ know that they also know what the final destination is and how to get there. Even if they're behind, they know where to go once they get the chance."

Clint's mouth hung in disbelief, briefly stared towards the location of the city, and then groaned.

"I get it that you're the _Voice of Reason_ and all, but _I'm_ second-in-command. And I say that _we_'re going to the city to look for Maria and Hank, right now. We can't just sit here and sing _Kumbaya_. We-we just _have_ to try!"

"And do what, exactly, Agent Barton?" Jarvis's tone was serene, cool, and sympathetic despite the harsh reality of his words. "Roam aimlessly in chaos while they may already be in route back here? Go search for them and miss them on our way there, only for them to have to wait for us here, or repeat the cycle from the start?"

"But–"

"Dude," Harold Hogan began, "I know that you want to go help. I do, too. I…" Happy looked down. "If I had my way, I'd be searching for Pepper instead of being here. And I know that… that you'd be looking for Widow, too, if you could. But Jarvis is right. This is bigger than us. If we go to the city, we may help a few people here and there, but that's all we can do right now. We have to get to Latveria, if we want to help _everyone_. And you… you have a special mission, too. The team needs _you_ to be in Latveria when we all get there. Tony and Pepper can't sneak up into the castle without you."

"Or Natasha," Clint replied, his head hung. "We need Natasha, too."

"And I'm sure she's on her way there," Jarvis said with a comforting smile. "I'm sure that–"

_BOOM!_

Whatever other words of support the retired member of the Royal Air Force had planned to say to the antsy archer were halted when the sound of Vienna being given the same treatment as Paris, sent all three men flying toward the tree line.

xxxXXXxxx

"Are you sure your husband's not psychic?" Iceman asked the redhead standing behind him, his arms crossed over his chest.

"He's not," Pepper sighed, her shoulders as deflated as Drake's. "He's just… _way_ too smart."

"Now what?" Bobby turned around in place and pointed at the mess of snow behind him. "Our path is totally blocked."

"Damn," Widow groaned.

"Can you build a bridge of ice to go around it?" Pepper asked, her eyes briefly looking towards her right and down, once again taking in the vast, dark hole they had been trekking around for hours. Even in the middle of the blizzard, it was clear that there was nothing but a large abyss to their right, and a ragged mountain to their left. The fall alone could kill them – and if that did not do the trick, the thick glacier that she knew rested below them would do the honors, without a doubt.

"That might work," Bobby's head moved from side to side, already trying to determine the best way to test the redhead's theory.

"Can we go _through_ it, instead?" Maya suggested, still piggyback riding on Kurt. "I'm not so sure that we should add any more weight to the trail. Ice thick enough to support us would be very heavy."

"Could we climb above it?" Natasha wondered aloud. "We do have the tools for that."

"The wind gust is pretty bad," Bobby replied.

"What if I take a look at it, see how much space is after it, and then teleport each one of you there?" Kurt proposed.

"The wind gust _is_ pretty BAD," Bobby repeated, uncertain of how much, if at all, in such harsh weather conditions, Nightcrawler's ability to attach his hands and feet to surfaces would actually help with the dangerous task. "Can you even stick to the mountain? It's kinda slippery."

"I could use some of the tools to help me. But I think I should be fine. If it gets too dangerous, I can always teleport back here with you."

The silent deliberation took a moment or so. From all the options they had just listed, Kurt's was the one that made the most sense. Even if he did not end up teleporting them to the other side of the blockade, it would still help their problem solving efforts to know what awaited them on the other side of the mountain of snow. Seeing no better choice at the moment, especially now that the night was starting to fall, the four team members begrudgingly agreed with Kurt's suggestion.

"Alright," Widow said as she helped Maya Hansen climb off Kurt's back. "But if you don't feel comfortable with any movement…"

"I will come right back," Kurt assured the worried team leader with a nod.

It took one minute for the ropes to be tightened around Maya's waist again. One more minute for these same ropes to be removed from Kurt to give the man free range. It then took ten minutes for him to reach the needed height on his climb, even though he only needed to travel what could be considered to be a couple of stories high. However, and much to his disappointment, it took him only _one_ second to realize the gravity of the situation at hand.

There would be no going _around_ the obstacle, _through_ the obstacle, or even _above _the obstacle. In fact, the visible obstacle was not even the _real_ issue they needed to overcome. The true hitch – the actual hurdle before them – the one Kurt would then share with his team, was that, past the barrier of snow, there was no longer a _path_.

As far as he could see, and as far as they were concerned, their planned trek on Mount Matterhorn had come to a sudden and unexpected stop.

Their only immediate foreseeable solution: walking right back to the start.

xxxXXXxxx

The buzzing in his ears made his head hurt and his eyes want to remain shut. However, the burning sensation he felt on his arms and legs forced him to ignore the bitching attitude of his eyes, and to listen to the urgency delivered by his brain. He blinked a few times to clear the blurriness, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms a couple of times, and then shook his head to will the ringing in his ears to stop.

The first object he recognized was his own body, even if it appeared to be moving in slow motion despite how much he wanted it to react as quickly as his brain told him that it should. The second thing that caught his attention was the sound of his name being called. The third and final piece of the puzzle came in the form of being pulled to his feet by his left arm, only to then be shaken by the shoulders while jumbled words made their way to his ears.

After not being able to make sense of what he knew had to be some kind of important message being relayed to him, he forced his eyes to stare at the person before him.

The look of panic on Gambit's face was enough to shake more sense into him.

"Can you walk?" Remi asked again, partly slapping Rhodey's left cheek with his hand.

"Yeah," Rhodey's voice was raspy. "Yeah… yeah, I can."

"Then take her!" Gambit took a step back and pointed towards his left and the ground. "Scott and I will take Nick."

"Take her?" Rhodey's brain was still somewhat cloudy. "Take who?"

"Whitney," Remi kneeled on the ground and picked up the blonde in his arms when it became obvious to him that the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to be set on the right path.

"Whitney?"

"I think she might still be alive!"

_Might, what?!_

The thought never left Rhodey's mouth.

"Oh, shit!" Gambit growled while looking over his right shoulder.

Before he realized it had happened, Gambit had deposited Whitney's body in his arms and had then rushed away from him. Rhodey shook his head once again, finally regaining the bearings he needed to make some sense of the matter at hand.

"Whitney?" his eyes landed on her bloodied, limp form and he shook her in his arms. "Whitney, wake up!"

His head snapped up when he heard the unmistakable sound of Scott Summer's laser eyes being used. Said sound was then followed by the noise made by Gambit's explosive cards, and Rhodey's jaw nearly dropped to the ground when he realized who the two X-Men were fighting against. Who they were trying – and failing miserably – to keep at bay.

"Doombots?"

_ What the hell is going on?!_

The last thing he remembered was falling asleep shortly after his night guarding round had ended – after his partly awkward talk with the woman in his arms had come to a close. He did not even remember if he had been asleep long enough to have been dreaming or not, or if his morning alarm had gone off or not. For all he knew, it had only been two seconds since he had closed his eyes to rest and then opening them up just now to witness whatever_ this_ was.

_War_, Rhodey swallowed hard when it finally dawned on him. _This is war._

Suddenly, flashbacks of his first-hand encounter with this type of terror back at Frankfurt threatened to keep him frozen where he stood. Nevertheless, when he began staring left and right, and then up and down, the gravity of the situation finally hit home and gave him the push he needed to act.

Vienna was gone. The thick cloud of smoke that was as high in the sky as the eye could see at night all but confirmed the demise of the city. Their former checkpoint was now nothing more than a memory – just as Paris was.

"Fuck!"

Rhodey looked behind him, saw that he was mere feet away from the tree line, and rushed towards it. He kneeled as soon as he became protected by the shadows created by the thick foliage around him, and then laid Whitney on the ground. He spared a glance towards the battle arena before him to assess the situation, noticed that Cyclops and Gambit continued fighting off the bots, and then realized that Nick Fury was lying still, face down. Gambit's words about the general hit him again, prompting Rhodey's legs to spring him off the ground.

General Fury was a heavy man, but the War Machine alter ego somehow managed to bring him into the same area where he had left the unconscious blonde behind. He then reached for his walkie-talkie, pressed the talk button on it, and looked up to watch Scott's back as he spoke into it.

"I've secured Fury and Stane. They're off the field."

"_Are they away from view?"_

Rhodey hesitated for a second. "Somewhat."

"_Then get over here! We need help!"_

Rhodey returned the walkie-talkie to his hip, checked that his gun was unlocked and loaded, but then hesitated once again. He only had a few rounds left, and even if he took Fury's and Whitney's arsenal, he would only add a few more minutes of fire power to the fight. Not to mention, he would leave his teammates without any weapons they could use to protect themselves if they suddenly woke up. It was a _damned if he did, damned if he did not_ situation but, for the life of him, he could not quickly discern which damn was the lesser of the two evils.

The massive explosion that he was now certain had taken place while he had been asleep had either scattered or completely destroyed their supplies, so it was not as if he could just walk up to one of their backpacks for more guns, bullets, grenades or any other helpful device or weapon they could somewhat afford to spare. Staying behind to guard Whitney's and Fury's out-cold forms was also not an option, but it did appear to be the better choice at the moment if he would only hinder Gambit's and Cyclops's efforts more than he could help. The last thing the two X-Men needed was to worry about protecting him too, once he ran out of ammo.

His fists trembled at his sides, wishing he had his War Machine armor with him. Hell! Even the X-51 would be of better use to him right now than his shitty gun. He felt useless. Completely powerless. An absolute burden to his teammates and their cause. Everyone else had something they could rely upon in dire situations like these – something they could offer as help. Even Nick Fury would have jumped into battle right now with the little advantage he knew the general had. But Rhodey was a man of reason before he was a man of action – and reason told him that he had nothing to contribute to the battle taking place before his eyes.

If only he could be like everyone else. If only he could _be_ anyone else. If only…

He gasped in realization when his disappointed words gave him an idea – a possible solution to his current predicament.

And he once again silently cursed his friend for being a fucking genius at heart.

Rhodey kneeled before the two unmoving bodies, checked that they both still had a pulse, and then carefully lifted Whitney's head with his left hand. His fingers hovered over the gray metal band that surrounded her neck, pressed his right thumb against the digital scanner of said item, and then watched in awe as the new iteration of the Madame Masque mask unlocked from the blonde's neck. Rhodey wasted no time in putting the adjustable collar around his neck, locked it into place, and then stood up.

"_Subject: James Rhodes. Use of hard light camouflaging tech authorized," _the collar's AI said aloud.

Rhodey smiled at the shrewdness of his plan. He did not have to wish he could be anyone else at the moment – he could _become_ someone else. And given the fact that they were outnumbered, and that two members were conked out, he could only think of one member of the resistance who could be of the best assistance to them all.

Without hesitation, and without warning Scott or Remi, James _Rhodey_ Rhodes used the hard light hologram emitter Tony had modified for Chameleon and became: the Hulk.

xxxXXXxxx

The roar was unmistakable – completely recognizable, in fact. But what did not make sense to them; what certainly did not compute at all at the moment, was the fact that they were hearing it right here, right now.

"What the _fuck_?"

Even though they did not voice it, both Jarvis and Hawkeye echoed Happy Hogan's puzzlement and shock. One moment, they had been arguing about returning to Vienna to find Hank McCoy and Maria Hill. The next, they had been flung towards the woods by an explosive wave that had left them dazed and confused. Their camp was destroyed. Their supplies nowhere to be seen. And now, as if that had not been hectic enough for them, they had just heard the Hulk's distinguishing battle cry.

"Is Team D here?" Hawkeye asked no one in particular, too bewildered to even bother directly addressing either of his two companions.

"I… no… I don't…" Jarvis shook his head. "Vienna is not even in their path."

"But, dude…" Happy scratched the top of his head. "That was the Hulk!"

A second, much louder growl made them wonder if their information was even up to date. The three of them then exchanged uncertain looks, stared towards the smoking city, hoped their two other teammates had miraculously escaped the bombing, and then rushed towards the possible origin of the Green Machine's angry scream. There was only one Hulk in the world, and if it had not been he who had just snarled for a third time, then they had much bigger issues about to fall into their laps.

xxxXXXxxx

They had thought that the elements had made them feel as cold as they would ever be in their entire lives, but after hearing Nightcrawler's grim description of their now vanished path, their blood had rushed to their feet. They had planned to make it out of the path by sundown, reaching the tourist-known cave that had been mapped out for them to use as their final stop for the night, but now it appeared that they had to return to square one.

If it had been the start of the day, the issue would have not been as serious as it was at the moment. Adjusting their path after a good night's sleep would be annoying and inconvenient, but not deadly. Trying to do so after a long day of trekking in a taxing blizzard that was expected to worsen by nightfall, was a whole other animal on its own. The return to the bottom of the mountain would eat up time they did not have; use supplies they thought would be spared. But, most importantly, it would force them to travel all night, in the dark, if only to not allow the cold winds to freeze them to death.

Hypothermia was not the worst way to go, all things considered. But dying in the Alps was also certainly nobody's plan.

Staying put was not an option, either. Yet, traveling back to the start was a fool's choice. Suddenly, Iceman's joke of being able to create an igloo did not sound as stupid or silly as it had done so in the VTR.

"The path is only three-feet wide," Maya reasoned. "We would need to be flush against the mountain to leave room for the ice wall."

"I'd rather be cramped inside an ice structure than walking back in the middle of the storm," Natasha adjusted the position of her backpack, waving it lightly from side to side to loosen up some of the accumulated snow on it.

"What about in the morning, after the storm?" Pepper rubbed her hands together. Staying still was making her toes and fingers lose sensation.

"What about it?" Widow asked.

"If the snow keeps falling at this rate, we'll be covered in who knows how many feet of it," Iceman replied.

"What about oxygen?" Kurt brought up. "We would have to stay close together to keep warm, but we'll quickly run out of breathing air like that."

"I can make a window," Bobby shrugged. "It'll let some of the cold inside, but we won't suffocate."

"Or you could make a path of ice," Pepper rubbed her face with her hands.

"Red, if it wasn't so stormy, I'd do it without batting an eye," Iceman said with disappointment. "But with the wind the way it is, and the snow, and who knows what else is out there until we reach the other side of the path… I could just be building us a very fancy bridge to hell."

"Can the bridge go up?" Maya asked, her head aimed towards the sky.

"I thought you didn't want to add weight to the path?" Iceman reminded the botanist.

"I don't," Maya admitted. "But if we can't go left, or right, and down is not an option…"

"We could try to reach the next path above us and keep going," Kurt finished for the brunette.

"Huh," Bobby rubbed his chin with his right hand. "Maybe you _can_ do more than just wash our plastic ware after dinner, Hansen!"

"I am the fucking scientist of the group, remember?" Maya's use of an expletive made Pepper snort aloud.

"You may not be the sugar after all," Bobby said with a smirk.

"Hey!" Maya narrowed her eyes.

"What?" Bobby shrugged. "I heard mules are smart!"

"You're such an ass!"

"Hey, how about we tackle one issue at a time, huh?" Iceman replied with a smug smile, glad that they would probably not have to camp on a narrow path in the Alps. "First, let me see how high up the next path is. And _then_ we can worry about measuring up my level of assholery and compare it to your similarity to a mule. Agree?"

"What for?" Maya smirked, arms crossed. "You've already won."

At that, and once again, Black Widow laughed aloud.

xxxXXXxxx

_Whitney Stane took a seat at the small table, the only light in the room coming down directly from above, leaving the rest of the room obscured in shadow. It was not lost on her that this was the first time she had ever been on __**this**__ side of the table in an interrogation room. It felt good._

_Seated across from her, Kevin Kowalowski had his hands locked into place on the surface of the table, preventing him from making any aggressive movements… although Whitney doubted he would do so anyway. His hangover had ended yesterday afternoon, and now that he had been fed and given time to rest, he looked completely unsurprised to be where he was; he did not even seem too concerned with what was going to happen to him._

"_Hello there, Kevin," the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent said, removing the mask that covered her face and revealing herself to him, her dark hair turning back to its blonde state with the mask's removal. Kevin's face did take on a look of surprise at seeing who had been hiding behind that creepy goddamn mask._

"_Whitney Stane?" his voice made it clear that he was not sure if what he was seeing was real._

"_Yes, it's me. You remember me, after all?"_

_Kevin scoffed and chuckled a little. "Of course, I remember you. Everybody who went to the Tomorrow Academy during those two years you were there remembers you, I'm sure." _

_He looked away from her, trying to scan his surroundings, but the room was too dark to reveal details._

"_I wasn't aware that I had made such an impression," Whitney said with honesty. She had hardly even looked at Kowalowski during her time at the Academy, and she had never spoken to him. _

"_Oh, you made an impression, alright. Every school has the stuck-up rich bitch who thinks she's better than everyone else, and turns her nose up at any attempt by normal people to be friendly to her. That was __**you**__. And then, you try to kill some of your classmates. None of us were surprised when the news report came out that you had kidnapped Pepper and almost killed her," Kevin smirked after saying this, seeing a brief flash of discomfort flit across Whitney's face, but she ignored it._

"_Well, Kevin, I'm sorry if I turned my nose up at any attempt you made to talk to me. And, I'm sorry if what I did to Pepper bothered you. But, it seems that you've gotten yourself into some bad business of your own. Shame on you." _

_Her words were said in a tone of clearly false sympathy. She wanted him to know that she could play the game, too._

"_Just get on with it," he said with impatience. "What do you want?"_

"_We want to know what's going on with your boss's plans, and what instructions you've left with the rest of AIM." _

_Kevin turned to the side, startled at the deep voice that had come out of the shadows. He watched as General Nick Fury stepped into view from where he had remained hidden all along. The general took a stance next to his newest agent's sitting form, scowling down at Kowalowski with his one good eye._

"_And you're going to tell us every detail, Kevin."_

xxxXXXxxx

The next available path was located forty-feet above them. It was a more traveled path; one that saw frequent traffic from repeated hikers and tourists alike, but one that also led them away from the cave they would have been in able to stay in tonight. The tradeoff was going to be not having to return to the bottom of the mountain after all, but they would now have to break out their tents earlier than anticipated and set camp.

Then again, Natasha silently mused to herself as she stabbed her ice axe within a solid piece of rock and pulled herself up, after they finished climbing forty feet of slippery yet ragged mountain side in the middle of a blizzard, having the opportunity to pass out for the night inside a tent rather than out in the cold was its own reward.

"When I see… Tony… again," Pepper said between huffs, "I'm going… to kick…his ass… for this…"

"You and me both, Red," Iceman replied, his everlasting stamina slightly irritating the redhead. He was as tired as everyone else was, but with his ice exterior, the storm did not fight him as much as it slowed down the rest of the team.

"You're gonna… have to get… in line…" Maya Hansen added.

"I got dibs after… Potts," Natasha said.

"There'll be," Pepper pulled herself up before finding the next best spot onto which to place her right foot, "_NOTHING_ left of him… when I'm done! I'm gonna– UGH!"

"Pepper!"

Bobby quickly aimed his right arm down, stretched a small column of ice out from it, and then surrounded the redhead's right hand with it, stabilizing her wobbly form before she could fall to her death… and take everyone else with her on the way down.

Her entire body shook for an instant, the color gone from her face as she took in deep breaths to calm herself. She chastised herself mentally for her silly mistake; she had thought that her right foot had found safe purchase for her next step in her climb. She had believed the small patch of rock to be supportive enough to withstand her weight. Evidently, she had been wrong. Evidently, she had miscalculated what had seemed certain to her.

Or, had she?

She looked down for a moment, realized her right foot was still atop the jagged rock she thought had disappeared under her, just a second ago, and then shook her head. She then looked up to see Bobby's face of concern looking down at her as he slowly released his icy grip on her. He frowned at how confused she looked, silently asking her with raised eyebrows if there was anything wrong, but she lightly shook her head from side to side to answer his question. The redhead then looked at her right foot one more time, and wondered if she had simply slipped a little bit – or just enough to believe the rock had given under her weight.

It had felt real, though. At least for _her_ it had, as Black Widow showed no signs of even acknowledging that a piece of the mountain had almost hit her in the face. If the piece of rock had actually chipped off, there should have been some sort of reaction from any of the three members below her.

Surprisingly, and dreadfully, there had been none. Surprisingly, because a spiky piece of mountain falling towards you while you climbed should have spooked the beejesus out of anyone. Dreadfully, because what Pepper had thought had taken place, had not.

Had she really slipped, or had her temporary loss of balance been the cause of something else?

"Pepper?" Bobby's voice made her look up again. This time, however, she put on a fake smile.

"I'm good," she lied. "I'm fine. But we probably shouldn't talk anymore."

"Yeah. That sounds like a good idea," he gulped, not at all falling for her façade. Nonetheless, they were still halfway to the next path. He would question her actions of just now when they were back on solid ground once more; when their lives and the fate of the planet was not – literally and metaphorically – hanging by a thread.

The ginger's suggestion of remaining silent and focused on their task was followed until Bobby reached the edge of the next path. He grunted loudly as he pulled his body up to the trail. He then busied himself nailing his ropes to the mountain, before he proceeded to help Pepper up. Pepper repeated Bobby's previous safety precautions once she reached the trail, and then the two of them helped Black Widow reach over the path. The pattern repeated two more times and, soon enough, Team A was again back on track.

They continued to walk in silence after the ropes returned to their waists. At this altitude, their steps became slower and more tiresome than before. The atmospheric pressure was greater than what it had been just forty-feet below. Not to mention, the storm was even less unforgiving up here than it had been through their previous path. It was at least three degrees colder up here, too. Overall, the new path, while shorter and more widely known, was a lot harder on their already exhausted bodies than their original one had been.

Kurt felt Maya's hands land on his shoulders for support, and the man slowed down his steps for her. He would have offered to carry her once more, but he was rather tired himself, thus he feared his good intentions would end up biting him in the tail. Perhaps, in a couple more hours or so, he would be in better shape to help her again. At the moment, however, he could barely carry his own soul.

Natasha Romanoff was also feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. She had been training her entire childhood for facing and getting out of the most extremes of situations; the direst of places around the world. Yet, nothing she had been put through before compared to this. She was smart, athletic, and rather scrappy, but not even the efforts and energy expended during the Makluan invasion compared to this. She knew that this part of their path was the hardest one, however. Which meant that, as soon as they were out of the mountain range, everything else would seem like a piece of cake compared to this. That was, until they reached Latveria and began their counterattack on Doctor Victor von Doom.

The leader of Team A was already thinking how they would have to adjust their plans to account for this holdup. She was busy recalculating the path in her head, counting supplies, taking into consideration the extra days they had to somehow make up for, and trying to imagine any other possible setbacks. She was busy doing what she was supposed to do right now: think, adjust, forecast – but this made her too busy to notice how tense and on edge the redhead in front of her was.

Pepper held back any visible reaction when she felt that same sensation of falling into an abysm return to her. It was the same one she had felt while climbing the mountain, moments ago – the one she had mistaken for a slip of her step. This time, however, there was nothing that would justify this sudden nauseating feeling. Nothing that would immediately explain why she was feeling this way. In fact, the sensation was proving to be confusing; turning further and further away from being described as a simple case of vertigo.

She knew what vertigo felt like, in fact. And it felt nothing like this.

She briefly closed her eyes to try to pinpoint when and where she had felt this way before, but she could not concentrate hard enough to do so. For a moment, she feared that her Extremis abilities were warning her of Doom's presence near them, cloaked somewhere in the middle of this winter storm, watching them like prey, but she quickly dismissed the possibility. If Doom was _anywhere_ around them, she would instantly know it – cloaking device or not. Her training with Gene had enhanced her senses in a way she never thought possible. And perhaps in ways that were now crippling her usual normal, human-like sixth sense. Perhaps it was even confusing her new abilities granted by her fully activated Extremis.

She had always trusted her gut instinct, and it was never _that_ far off. But, oh, for the life of her, she hoped that this time, it _was_ wrong.

She pressed her left palm against her chest, feeling something strange constraining her inside of it, and then whispered her protector's name. Bobby's head turned to his right, watched Pepper over his shoulder, and then opened his mouth to speak. Unfortunately, fate had other plans, and he never got a chance to ask her what was wrong.

The tongue-curling warning scream coming from Natasha made everyone react at the same time; all knowing _exactly_ what to do in this situation. They had practiced this perilous circumstance ad nauseam inside the VTR, allowing their bodies to react quicker than their brains could command evasive actions to be taken, even if just due to muscle memory and nothing more. The spikes that came out of their belts, the metal collars around their thighs and the ones on their upper arms, all smacked the front of their bodies to the mountain wall. The joke that Tony had made about the strength of the tiny devices he had made for them to be used in a case like this – stating that he was not responsible for broken teeth – was even less than amusing right now than it had been before.

The small avalanche of mostly fresh snow was gone as soon as it had arrived, leaving a shaky and panicky team in its wake. Most of the snow had made its way down, rolled almost perfectly out of their way, and not really affected the path they were on. For that, Natasha Romanoff was glad. On the other hand, the snow _HAD_ made its smooth way down… but it had not done so alone. Seconds after opening their eyes, Widow, Kurt and Maya all realized with fear that their little group of five was now short two very important members: Bobby Drake and Pepper Potts.

* * *

**A/N:** Soooo, I was _so_ excited about watching Civil War in a couple of weeks… until something on Tumblr spoiled the crap out of me to the point of devastation. I won't spoil it for anyone else but, I know, I just KNOW that NONE of you are going to like it. Now, if you excuse me, I have a dark corner to return to *sobs* There's more space in there to join me, if you need company, too :(

P.S. Whitney flashbacks credit goes to the hubby (Teen Tyrant).


	13. Chapter 12

**Guest Review Responses**

**Iron kid: The chapter is too shot but a part form that very good chapter can not wait for battle sense **– I honestly can't wait for the battle scenes either. I don't like writing battle scenes, but they're going to be a lot easier because I already have most of them written in my head. It's all fighting now (with a few Doom and Whitney flashbacks, here and there), but punch-punch-punch-kick-kick-slap-slap-oh-crap is all that's left! Thanks for being here! :D

**A/N:** Fair warning, my Faithful Readers. The genre of this fic IS Tragedy for a reason. Five characters are not gonna make it – and there will be no coming back for them. Anyone want to take a guess at which five?

* * *

**Chapter 12**

_He was ready._

_After all this time, he was finally ready to make his move. All he was waiting for now was the right opportunity. The beast had just finished another round of torment on him, and so it could happen at any moment now. As it had happened each time, he returned to his unfortunate circumstances with full memory of where he actually was and how he came to be here – memories which had been absent just seconds ago, as he had watched his dear Valeria perish yet again._

_Recalling again all he had learned in the last few repeated cycles that his existence had become, Doom prepared to strike out with all he had the instant he felt the alien centipede's mind turn away from him… any moment now… any moment…_

_**Now!**_

_With a growl containing all of his hate and rage for the vile thing that held him captive, Victor von Doom thrust his armored hands out, his gauntlets unleashing with full force a wave of energy that was the exact same frequency to the monster's own life-force, but would have the exact opposite effect from benefitting it. The result was immediate and unmistakable._

_Yogthulu let loose a shriek of surprise and pain that went beyond any sound a mere human had ever heard. The otherworldly intestines that simultaneously could smother with their closeness or engulf with their expansiveness began to tremble like a cosmic earthquake, shaking Doom's position, but not causing his resolve to waiver an inch. He could sense that the creature was trying to muster a defense, strike back at him with its power, even within its own body. Doom was having none of it, and lashed out with his power again, his reserves being used in tandem with the knowledge he had gained of the demon's vulnerability, adding his own voice as further distraction and humiliation to his captor._

"_You are not so mighty after all, are you, creature? You are no longer taking joy in suffering, now that is your own that you are experiencing. Allow me to provide you a proper lesson in the ways of __**pain**__!"_

"_STOP!" Yogthulu's wails echoed in his ears and his mind simultaneously. "Stop now, human! I will not allo- UAAAAAGH!" _

_Behind his metal mask, the doctor smiled with as much wickedness as his black heart was capable of mustering. It felt good to turn the tides on this foul thing that dared to believe itself his better. Yogthulu had never felt pain before; it did not know how to handle it. Its tolerance for the feeling of physical damage was nonexistent, and this weakness would be exploited to the fullest._

"_You will learn not to meddle with my affairs, nor to renege on a deal once struck. But you will not have the opportunity to put that knowledge to use, for it shall be the last thing you learn in your damnable life." _

_Doctor Doom continued to increase the power pouring from his armor in green electrical arcs, pushing with all he had left to drive the life out of his enemy._

"_But most of all, you shall realize in your final moments how grave an error you made in thinking that you could claim __**me**__. You have brought this fate upon yourself, Yogthulu. You should have realized from the beginning, that I would ultimately be your undoing. For I… am… __**DOOM**__!"_

_The struggle went on for an unknown length of time, but Doom never wavered. In spite of all the thrashing and flaying about, he ripped into the demon's life-force without pause. Eventually, he felt the sensation of falling, and then a massive tremor ran the full length of the beast as he felt it crash onto a solid surface. Still, Doom did not let this distract him from plunging the arcs of power into the alien flesh continuously, like a knife of raw energy that he would use to terminate the creature through slow and painful exsanguination. _

_Yogthulu's wild thrashing began to slow; its wails – both mental and audial – began to subside. After a few more moments, it stopped altogether and Doom felt its body settle. The doctor did not let up; he would take no chance that the abhorrent thing would come back from the edge of death. He was going to push it over that edge and fling its filthy carcass into the Depths, if he could._

_After continuing for a few more moments, Doom was convinced that the creature was not faking. It might not have really been dead, but he doubted it was a ploy. Just in case there was still any life within it, however, Doom was not going to simply cut a hole through the side and walk out. Gathering all of his remaining power – trying to maintain a steady foot-hold in the process, which was difficult, and not because of the uneven interior either – Doom flung his arms outward and unleashed a concussive blast of energy that became a massive explosion within Yogthulu's enclosed body. In an instant, the cavity was torn open, smoke and debris filling the sky. _

_Engaging the anti-gravity features of his armor, Doom flew above the smoke cloud and expended the last of the potential kinetic force he had gathered within his armor, letting it arc out of him like electrical discharge. He took in a breath of sweet, yet extremely frigid air. The action felt wonderful, yet at the same time it hurt his lungs. He knew he would feel different after being held in a state that lacked physical sensation for so long. Yet, at the same time, he could tell that something was not quite right. Something was still wrong with him. Well, he would deal with that later. First, he needed to determine where he was. He would be fortunate if he had not wound up on some other planet or in another dimension._

_Doom looked around himself, taking in the environment. His armor's scanners made a sweep of his surroundings at the maximum extent of their range, but he did not need them to know where he was. He recognized the mountain range that the demonic centipede's corpse had landed upon. He was in the mountains of his own Latveria. He was home. Presumably, the beast had tried to exit its own realm and bring him back to a plane of existence in which he would be subject to the traditional laws of physics, and therefore be more vulnerable to attacks beyond simply using the powers of its own realm, which he had already been using against it. _

_Whatever the reason for his arrival back on Earth, it did not matter. So long as he had not wound up in a parallel universe to his own world, or ended up in the past or future of the era from which he was taken, all that mattered was that he had succeeded in returning to where he belonged. _

_Getting his bearings, Doctor Doom began to fly off in the direction of the capital city, Doomstadt, and his glorious castle which overlooked it. Once there, he would rest, and then prepare. Prepare to make those who had set Yogthulu upon him pay. Oh, he would inflict a misery upon them, so massive in scope and so profound in design, that they would look back upon the moment when Yogthulu was prepared to consume __**them**__… and consider it as an opportunity that had been lost._

_Yes: Doctor Doom did not take revenge lightly… and Iron Man would be one to find that out._

xxxXXXxxx

He turned his head to his right, opened his eyes, and saw her lying next to him. She was on her back, fast asleep, her face relaxed, her breathing leveled; just as he always found her when he was the first of the two to wake up. He shifted his body so that he now lay completely on his right side, reached out to touch her face with his left hand, and then grinned in contentment when she began stirring awake. Her hazel eyes fluttered. Her mouth contorted into a small smile. She licked her lips and swallowed down the dryness typical of the early morning, just before she opened her mouth to speak.

"Morning, Tony," she whispered.

"Morning, Pep," he immediately replied.

He slid closer to her body; the pull her form had on his always made it impossible for him to resist being around her without being pressed against her. She closed her eyes as soon as his lips landed on hers, and once he pulled away and opened his own electric blue orbs to stare at her face once more, a small cry coming from him almost choked him to death.

"PEPPER!"

Her eyes were once again open, but they lacked life within them. Her mouth was ajar, a thin trail of vibrant red blood trickling from the side of it. Her skin, which just seconds ago had radiated life and warmth, was now blue, cold and bruised. As his field of vision expanded to take in the rest of her, he swiftly realized he was lying in a pool of her own blood, rivers of it coming from a large hole in her head. He tried to get up from under the covers that were on them, but he just slipped in the slickness of the red liquid, sending him crashing onto her deceased-looking body.

He tried to pull himself away from her once more, but he found himself unable to move; and the reason for it made him gasp in shock. Her fingers were now digging into the sides of his head, her wide eyes staring at him with desperation. Her lips moved but no words came out from them, only croaking sounds that made him shiver. He attempted to pry her fingers from his head, but even while looking dead, she was stronger than she had ever been in life. The more he tried to release himself from her grip, the more he failed. And the more he failed, the closer his face got to hers. Maggots began coming out of her mouth and ears. Her eyes began leaking more of her blood as if they were tears. The scene was too much for him to witness, but he could not make his eyes close, or his nose stop breathing the scent of decay and death that emanated from her. He simply could not free himself from her.

"Whhhyyy, Tony? Whyyyyy?"

Her voice was raspy and forced, but he still managed to understand her words. He stared at her mouth and became horrified by the fact that her formerly plump lips were being feasted on by the maggots that were now crawling up his own arms. Yet, this scene was only half as frightening as watching something pop up from the middle of her forehead – an object he did not have the time to identify before it blew up in his face and bathed him with blood, brain matter and pus.

This was when it hit him. This was the moment he knew something was not at all right, aside from the obvious. This was too abnormal. Too detailed. Too bizarre to be considered real. He had to be dreaming. He just_ had_ to be dreaming. No human could be alive in these conditions. No _real_ human being could still be conscious and speaking after this.

_This is not real_, the inventor closed his eyes. _I have to wake up. I have to wake up!_

His hands landed on her cold ones and he began pulling them away from his face. He succeeded in partially removing her frozen fingers from him, but only because the digits broke off from her hands due to what appeared to be frostbite. He opened his eyes to see one of her broken fingers lying on the palm of his hand, partly rolling from side to side. At the sight of the unattached finger that appeared to still have some life within it, he could not help the scream that came out of his mouth as he tossed it away from him.

"Why, Tony?" Pepper cried beneath him. "WHY did you _kill_ me?"

"W-what?" the genius managed to ask, his eyes glued to her melting ones. "I… I didn't kill you, Pepper! I didn't! I didn't!"

"You promised…" the redhead began gurgling in maggots and blood. "You… promised…"

Before Tony could defend himself in this nightmare from hell, before he could make any statement whatsoever to refute her accusations, the ginger's body exploded below him, showering him with the remnants of who had once been his beloved wife. And even after it was obvious that her body had expired, he could still hear her voice echoing in his tent, demanding an explanation as to why he had sent her to her death by his hand.

He gasped loudly as he sat up straight, beads of sweat running down his temples despite the cool weather surrounding him. His eyes were wide, wet and stinging. His breathing was ragged. His entire body shook violently. He was in a total state of shock. It took him a few minutes to control himself; to find his center and realize that he had just been dreaming – again. That this had been nothing but the same dream that kept haunting him, worsening in its gruesome scale every time he went to sleep. He closed his eyes, inhaled and exhaled deeply through his nose, and then barely heard the zipper of his tent being pulled down.

"Tony? Tony! _TONY!_ Arthur is back!"

The inventor nodded once to let his childhood friend know that he had been heard, but he made no effort to move. He pulled the front of his shirt and used the inside of it to dry his sweating face. He then rubbed his forehead with his fingers, feeling some relief come to him with the small release of endorphins the action caused. However, when the scene of Pepper's forehead exploding briefly crossed his mind yet again, the genius pulled his hand away, opened his eyes, and all but scrambled out of his sleeping bag.

"T, are you alright?" Rhodey asked with a frown, suddenly forgetting that his job was to immediately bring Tony Stark out into the field to talk to Arthur Parks as soon as he returned from his mission. "You look pale, man."

"I'm fine," Tony replied before he grabbed a plastic bottle of water and chugged its entire contents in one go. "I'm fine. Just… give me a minute. I'll be right there."

Tony wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand and crushed the bottle of water with his right hand. He licked the last of the fresh water from his lips, blinked several times, and then turned around in place to see that not only had James Rhodes _not_ moved an inch, but that his frown had deepened so much that it almost resembled Gene Khan's.

"Dude, what the hell? You look like you just saw a ghost?"

Tony pursed his lips, looked away from Rhodey's judging gaze, and then rounded the man to reach the exit of his tent. He ignored Rhodey's groan of desperation as he trailed behind his billionaire friend, his focus only on reaching the current location of the Living Laser. He quickly found Arthur, sitting in a camping chair and eating cereal from a tiny plastic bowl; one which he almost dropped when he saw Tony approach him.

"Tony!"

"S'okay," Tony raised his left palm to keep Parks from further exerting himself, and then threw the now empty bottle of water into the fire that was kept lit at all times. "Finish eating. It can wait."

Arthur's look of concern was reflected on Rhodey's form standing behind Tony; and also on the faces of anyone else close to the genius billionaire, regardless of how much Tony Stark tried to ignore them. The two men near him exchanged worried glances, but they knew better than to try to pull anything out of their leader right now. He had been looking worse and worse since being teleported from Munich, and the news that Arthur had brought with him from the Venice checkpoint was not going to help improve the genius's mood.

As Tony waited for Arthur to recover from his latest travel, he began looking around to yet again briefly reassess the status of their mission, even if he was well aware of where it stood. It had been four days since Team D had been in Munich; the same four days since Arthur Parks had taken a chance and had returned to Vienna to try to find Teams B and C, but had only been able to teleport back with Beast and Maria Hill just before the city had been wiped out. It was also nearly two days since almost every other member of the resistance had been teleported to Kübekháza via _Living Laser Express _from Budapest, shortly after the incomplete Team B and the injured Team C had reached the latter team's final checkpoint together as one.

They were just a few miles away from Latveria's borders – able to reach Castle Doom in less than twenty-four hours, if they willed themselves to do so. Everyone present was more than ready and able to fight: T'Challa, Whitney, Rhodey, Cyclops, Gambit, Nick, Jarvis, Hawkeye, Happy, Maria, Beast, Gene, Bruce, Jean and Rogue. Jean Grey had telepathically kept up-to-date with Professor X back on Muir Island, who was now standing by (so to speak) to play mission control once the battle started. Everyone had already recovered from the side effects of traveling through the power lines. Everyone was ready to start the battle that would end this war. Everyone was just waiting for Tony to give the order; for him to point his finger towards Latveria and say _Go!_ Everyone was ready, _except_ Tony Stark himself.

And no one, not ONE soul in this camp, could blame him for hesitating at this juncture. Team A was MIA again, and Team A was composed of some key members of this counterattack.

Maya Hansen was supposed to lead Pepper and Tony inside the castle while Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton served as a distraction. Nightcrawler was supposed to teleport James Howard Stark to safety, once found, and after helping his mother break into the power core room. Bobby Drake was supposed to keep Pepper Potts alive until reaching Latveria… and Pepper Potts was supposed to go into the power core room and stop Doom's source of energy at its root.

Tony held back a sarcastic chuckle at the irony of it. Their plan was based on the ability to cut the energy source to Doom's arsenal. And energy would have gotten them all here in once piece, at the speed of fucking light.

His original plan had them leaving tomorrow morning, especially now that T'Challa was here with the _Earth Movers_, their suits, and supplies. But the more he thought about it, the more he and everyone else realized that leaving without Team A made all their planning and efforts a bust. The chips on their necks would last only for so long; and the only adult person that could avoid the Mainframe's influence was Pepper Potts herself. And she, along with her team, was yet to arrive to the final checkpoint everyone else awaited in.

"Are you even listening, Tony?" Rhodey's angry voice made Tony's mind return to reality.

"What?"

Rhodey groaned in response and threw his arms in the air.

"The checkpoint is gone, Tony," Arthur repeated the statement he had made three times already – one that had clearly gone over Tony's head until now.

"Gone, how? Venice disappeared too?"

"No. The building was taken over by Doombots. The teleportation device was mostly destroyed. I could barely get out of it when I got there. I had to use power outlets to come back. That's why I'm late."

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"Any sign of Team A?"

Arthur shook his head from side to side and his head hung; partly in shame that he had failed to locate Team A, but also in sympathy with Tony's feelings of despair and frustration, as the Living Laser awaited words of anger from the blue-eyed man. Both he and Rhodey expected Tony to blow up at the news, to start throwing things around and perhaps even demand that Arthur return to Venice and wait for Team A to show up. However, and much to their surprise, Tony simply sighed, patted Arthur on the shoulder, thanked him for his help, and then walked away and towards his tent without much else to add.

The sun was starting to come up, which meant that the camp would soon be buzzing with life and the execution of the past few days' routines, and Tony wanted to have no part in these activities right now. People would start having breakfast, talking, and then training again. They would go over the details of their plans, the blueprints of Castle Doom, and then review the maps of the Alps and Team A's path in an effort to figure out where said team could possibly be held back. Tony knew that there was talk of sending a search party to the Alps to look for Team A, but he would not encourage said action by publicly admitting his knowledge of its existence.

As much as it pained him, and as much as he wanted to be at the forefront of it all, there would be no search and rescue for Team A. The timing was not right. The situation was of no help. There was only getting to Latveria and stopping Doom, with or without the help of his wife.

This is what his redhead would have wanted him to do, anyway. Keep pushing and moving forward with the plans, no matter what. She would not want him to sit here and pout. She would not want him to hold the world hostage for her sake – not in a crucial moment like this. Their son awaited them in Latveria. He needed to be rescued from the hands of the madman that was now responsible for killing hundreds of millions of innocent civilians around the world for no good cause. Putting a stop to Doom's cruel acts was of higher importance than looking for a redhead in the middle of the Alps. And if he dared to go back to look for her and found her, she would surely yell at him for daring to commit such a stupid deed. He just knew her too damn well to not know this to be the case. Just as he knew that everyone else would not know or even try to understand why he would be willing to _halt_ any and all efforts to go back for his wife.

And frankly, after everything that had happened thus far and knowing what awaited them in Latveria, he could not at all give a damn about that.

Tony covered his face with his hands as soon as he entered his tent and groaned into them, trying his best to get his rage out of his system before anyone else watched him breakdown at the news brought by Arthur Parks. He knew that they would try to use any of his pent up frustration to get him to yield to the _We Need to Find Team A_ front. He knew either Gene or Rhodey, or _both_, would be in here at any moment to argue with him about his blatant inaction regarding determining Team A's whereabouts – just as they had done so every day thus far. But he also knew that he could not give in to their wishes. He knew that it was pointless to do a 180º on their plans now.

He knew it was stupid to turn back.

Tony sat on top of his sleeping bag on the ground, eyed his backpack in the corner, and then heard his redhead speak to him in his mind.

_"I love you, jerk. Don't give up."_

Her words were his only guide.

Memories of her were his only source of fortitude.

The pinwheel necklace on him his single fountain of hope.

Hope that Team A would suddenly show up. Hope that, just as before, their MIA status was simply just another temporary setback.

Hope that his fiery redhead was not gone.

Hope that he would hold her in his arms, once again.

Hope that was instantly shattered in a fleeting moment when turmoil taking place outside his tent made him rush out of the confines of his quarters and towards the edge of their camp to join everyone else already there, gasping at the scene in shock.

On the ground before them, barely conscious and still smoking from teleportation, lay a beat up and bleeding Maya Hansen, Nightcrawler, and Natasha Romanoff.

xxxXXXxxx

Everyone's blood turned cold after the remaining three members of Team A finished telling their story; after they concluded their explanation of the reason why they were short two members of their group and of how they had risked being seen on their way here by taking public routes to get to Kübekháza, as fast as they possibly could. The trio was still partly dehydrated, noticeably injured, terribly exhausted, and their minds somewhat hazy due to Kurt's constant teleportation to cut the distance walked, but they were aware enough to inform everyone, in no uncertain terms, of the possible tragic fate of Bobby Drake and Pepper Potts.

"We…" Maya swallowed hard, almost expecting her head to be chopped clean off where she sat once she delivered the news. "We didn't find any… _bodies_, but… but…"

"But we didn't see any footprints either," Natasha admitted, her head hung while Barton carefully patched her up. "They could've been covered by the snow, since the storm was still going on by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, but…"

"But we couldn't find anything else," Nightcrawler added, shame written all over his blue face.

Tony eyed on the map the approximate spot where the avalanche had taken place and noted with silent grief that it was the same place where the first hikers to climb to the top of the Matterhorn had perished in a similar fashion: falling to the glacier below after their ropes had accidentally snapped. Of the three people that had plummeted to the bottom of the mountain that one time, only two of the bodies had ever been recovered. It was highly possible that Pepper and Bobby's bodies would never be found… but it was also possible that they were still alive.

Pepper had Extremis 0 ingrained in her, which made her body as obstinate in its efforts to keep breathing as she was herself. The woman had once before survived a treacherous fall; being left for dead in a cold submarine; getting injected with snake venom; drinking contaminated water and eating rotten food; and she had even fought Doctor Doom while alone, half naked and unable to see him clearly move, on top of all; all of these events taking place way before the virus had been completely active within her. Before she had fully accepted and embraced what she could do. Each life-threatening event had brought the virus further and further out of its dormancy, making the ginger harder and harder to kill after every occurrence. And now, after two decades of hibernation, it was wide awake and raring to go at making sure nothing brought the redhead down.

Then, there was Bobby Drake, who was none other than the fucking Iceman, for crying out loud! Tony very much doubted that the mutant would simply accept a death as ironic as this for him: killed by a mobile pile of cuddly snow or due to a precipitous fall over thick ice. He knew that Iceman would have much rather be killed by being sent over to melt in the sun, or due to a shotgun to the face after flirting with someone's wife, or even by Gene's disappearing mouth trick… but not by ice. Not by what Tony knew the X-Man was proud to become. Not to mention, Iceman did not back away from a challenge, either – from an important assignment given to him. This was why Tony had trusted him to watch over Pepper, despite everyone else's doubts – and this was why the genius hoped their combined abilities had found them a way to either stop their fall or minimize the impact it could have on them.

Perhaps, as the rest of the team filled themselves with pain, mourning and grief, Pepper and Bobby were already making their way here, arguing about whose fault it was that they had made a wrong turn after hitting the intersection of _I-Just-Fell-Off-a-Fucking-Mountain_ Street and_ I-Need-to-Find-My-Way-Back _Avenue. Maybe, just maybe, the fate of Pepper and Bobby was not as tragic as everything pointed it to be.

Or perhaps, it was also likely that his dream had been more than just a dream: that it had been a soul-wrenching premonition. A heads-up sent by the universe, telling him that he was the only reason why Pepper would die of hypothermia, frostbite, or a shattered skull after falling to the bottom of the damned mountain he had sent her to climb. Maybe his nightmare was a message from the afterlife, sent by Pepper Potts herself, nagging at him from the beyond… but he knew that she was aware that he did not have faith in what he could not prove: and the afterlife was one of these things that he did not believe in.

"Well, that settles it," Happy stood up from his chair, pulling Tony from his multiple and contradicting thoughts. "We need to go back and search for them."

"I agree. And we should take one of the _Earth Movers_, too," Rhodey added, earning him a nod from Harold Hogan and Gene Khan.

"I should go, too," Jean Grey said. "I can maybe try to communicate with them telepathically, find their location that way. Or, at the very least, tell the Professor to try using Cerebro to find them without cluing in Doom."

"I can use my rings to get us there," Gene also stood up. "I can get us pretty close to where it happened, and we can start from there."

"We have an extra first-aid kit, still unopened," Maria Hill began searching for said item. "We should also bring a tent."

"And maybe get in contact with Doctor Ross. We don't know what condition they might be in," Clint suggested.

"What populated place is nearby the location?" Gene's eyes searched the map. "We could perhaps try to–"

"One day."

Tony's deadpanned response made everyone stop their planning and look towards the hunched-sitting inventor. He was staring at the ground, his hands laced under his chin, his face not giving anything away of how he truly felt. He had not moved or said anything throughout Team A's recollection of the events, yet his current tone of voice and pose made it clear that he would accept no arguments from anyone who believed that they should already be on their way to the Alps.

"One day?" Rhodey frowned. "One day for what?"

"We'll give them one extra day to get here. If they're not here by sunrise, a whole day after the morning they know we're supposed to leave for Latveria, we're still packing up and heading out."

"What?!" Gene shook his head and had to be held back by Jean Grey. "That's just unacceptable! One day is not enough for them to catch up with us, especially if they're hurt worse than they are!" Gene pointed towards Natasha, Kurt and Maya. "What we need to do is go looking for them ourselves right now!"

"No," Tony's calm response made Gene Khan's left eye twitch.

"No?" Gene walked around the telepath and closed the distance between him and the inventor. "Are you fucking kidding me, Stark? Were you even paying attention to what they just said?"

"Yes, I was paying attention, Gene," Tony's head snapped up to glare back at the half-Makluan, but his voice remained evened out. "But we are not going to look for them. We are staying put, waiting for them for one extra day, and then leaving as soon as the sun comes up. With or _without_ them."

"What the FUCK, Tony?" this time, it was an equally fuming Rhodey who reached Tony's current position. For most of the time that Gene had attended the Tomorrow Academy, Rhodey and the Mandarin had not really seen eye-to-eye. It was just Tony's screwed up luck, however, that the duo suddenly decided to join forces against him at a time like this.

"Are you listening to yourself?" Rhodey continued. "Have you completely lost it? This is Pepper we're talking about! Pepper! She is my _friend_! She is your _wife_!"

"I know damn well who we're talking about, Rhodey," Tony stood up from the chair and narrowed his eyes at his best friend. "Don't you _dare _insinuate that I don't understand what the hell is going on. I know it better than anyone 'round here!"

"Do you now?" Gene spat. "Because I don't think you do. _You_ should be the first one on board with this! _You _should already be helping us pack! _We_ should be the ones trying to stop y_ou _from leaving!"

"This is not the best choice, Gene, and you know it. We have a job to do. We… this… this is not what… this is not what _Pepper_ would want us to do. You trust her, don't you, Gene? You told her that you trusted her, believed in her… more than I do. Remember?"

Gene opened his mouth to deny Tony's claims – assertions that the Mandarin himself had made when Tony had been the one losing his shit over the rough training sessions that had been prepared for the ginger in the VTR. But he could not do it. He could not suddenly take back the words he had said before. He still believed in Pepper. He still trusted her to protect herself and for her to properly and effectively use the trainings she had received from him. Part of Gene, a rather _small_ part at the moment, still believed that the woman he loved was in the process of finding her way out of the Alps while cursing loudly at herself for being stupid enough to hold everyone back. And even though the part that told him to go looking for her took up most of his soul, he knew that his most hated enemy was in the right.

Seeing that the genius had successfully taken down one of his supporters, Rhodey grabbed Tony by the collar of his shirt and pulled him towards his face, their noses nearly touching.

"_Not _what she would want us to do? You don't think she _wants _to be rescued? You don't think she would _want_ for us to help them out? Do you even understand how this is _your_ fault? Do you even know what _you_ did to _her_?"

"I KNOW WHAT I DID, RHODEY!" Tony held onto his friends' forearms, somewhat angry at himself for finally losing his cool in front of his team. "I know what I did to her! I know that… that she and Iceman are… most likely… that they probably didn't…"

Tony briefly closed his eyes, exhaled through his mouth, released Rhodey's arms, and then hung his head.

"I sent Pepper there… I sentenced her to death when I sent her to the Alps. Especially now that I know there was another way. I know that. I..." he closed his eyes again, images of her blue-looking, maggot-infested face of his dreams passing through his mind. "But if we stop now, if we delay it more than we should… it'll all be for naught."

Tony's right palm awkwardly rested on his chest, right on top of his redhead's necklace, and then stared at Rhodey in the eye.

"I can't allow that. I can't let it all be for nothing. Please, understand that. All of you: you just have to understand that. It's not that I don't want to go looking for her. It's not that I don't know that her blood… _their_ blood, is on my hands. But we need to do what we came here to do. We can't just go back after how hard it was for us to get here in the first place. She…" Tony smiled sadly. "If she knew that I let us turn around now, she'd kick my ass."

Maya, Kurt and Natasha exchanged defeated looks across the camp, all remembering similar warning words of ginger-led punishment befalling the inventor being uttered by the redhead herself during their climb. She _had_ said that she would hurt Tony for sending them through the Alps. She _had_ intended to give him a piece of her mind once reunited again. She_ had_ planned to see this through to the end, push for this Doctor Doom overthrowing issue to be done with, and then shake her husband senseless for his silly ideas. She had stated, in no ambiguous terms, what she had in store for the mad scientist and for her biological father as well, once she was face-to-face with them. She had listed what she had wanted to do after she was done, and how strongly she believed sacrifices needed to be made to win this fight. During their two weeks of travel with her, she had been an open book to them, showing what she was made of and what she stood for, and after seeing her in action during their time together, they all begrudgingly had to agree with Tony Stark's current reasoning and words.

In fact, for anyone that knew her, they would have to reluctantly agree that Tony was right. Yes: she would have _liked_ to be rescued. But she would also choose saving her son and the world he would live in, above saving her own ass.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Rhodey released Tony's shirt, clearly showing on his face that he knew, deep inside, Tony's words to be true. He did not have to like it, or even have to agree with it; yet, the lack of either action on his or anyone else's part would not make any of it less of a fact. Rhodey then looked over his shoulder, towards Gene's and Happy's current location, and saw on them the same expression of angry acceptance of what needed to be done that he knew was also reflected on his own face.

Pepper Potts had survived worse things on her own – and this time, she was not alone. They would just have to trust _and_ hope that she and Bobby were strong enough to find their way back. And that Tony Stark's blind belief in his wife's abilities was not too over the top.

"One day, Tony," Rhodey said between gritted teeth. "One FULL day, alright?"

Tony Stark agreed with a nod.

xxxXXXxxx

_Unseen to the world, Doctor Doom stood looking over his targets as they continued to dash back and forth over the whole chaotic scene, determined to recover the remains of all the casualties from the bottom of the river. Meaningless. Pathetic. The delusion that they both shared, the sense of __**duty**__ that guided them; it disgusted him._

_Doom had learned many things in the six months since his return from Yogthulu's realm, and had set many events in motion. He had learned that Tony Stark, the son of his former captive Howard Stark, was Iron Man. This had been revealed to the world during his absence, and once he had discovered this, Doom had immediately begun researching his young opponent. _

_At the time he had started looking into the boy's life, he had discovered that a member of his team, a bratty girl named Patricia "Pepper" Potts, had been abducted, and that the culprit was believed to be the daughter of Obadiah Stane. With spy tech that no one else on Earth had access to, Doom had been able to watch and listen as Iron Man, his allies, and S.H.I.E.L.D. all scrambled to find the girl and apprehend her abductor. _

_Once the Stane girl had been placed in custody, he had listened with great interest while it was revealed how much the Potts girl meant to Stark. The boy was full-fledged in love with her, and her situation had been making him miserable to a degree that Doom knew all too well. Doom's microscopic spy tech did not work near Stark's Iron Man armor when it was active – something the boy had built into the suit was able to scramble even the doctor's inventions – and so he had not been able to follow the inventor when he flew to wherever his base of operations was. However, this was not really a concern, as the revenge Doom intended to dish out did not require making a surprise attack on Iron Man's headquarters to accomplish. _

_Rather, he had kept apprised of the situation by continuing to look in on the Helicarrier. Eventually, Stark had returned with the girl and the Mandarin. The two had apparently allied themselves again to retrieve her from wherever she had been held. It had ultimately been determined that Potts would likely recover, and that had been when Doom had decided he had seen enough for now, opting to withdraw from observing his enemy in order to start plotting._

_It was clear to Doom just how much the girl's plight had affected Stark. This would serve him, as he was forced to admit to himself that, with the allies the inventor had amassed and how much his power had grown, a direct strike against the boy would be fool-hardy in his current condition. As such, Doom had decided to go about his revenge in a different manner. _

_He had sent an invitation out to all of the enemies that Iron Man had made who were still alive and not in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, and had offered a sizable reward for the deaths of both Iron Man and Rescue. He put emphasis on the girl's death, particularly that her head was to be removed and that the reward for her was higher than for Stark himself. His goal with these actions was to cause Stark as much sorrow as he could once Pepper Potts had been murdered and Stark had failed to protect her. Simple, yes – clichéd even – yet absolutely effective. _

_He had also gathered together many of those he had sent the bounty invitation to and met with them all at a neutral location. He had made it clear to all of them that any mention of his return to anyone would result in a death most unpleasant, a threat which none of them dared to test, even in his weakened state. This would ensure that all parties involved claimed ignorance if questioned about who had set this endeavor in motion, but would also drive home the legitimacy of this endeavor better than if he had remained anonymous to them through indirect communication. The cabal of criminals had shared plans, strategies, and weapons technology, so that each would know what the other would do to try to collect on the bounty Doom had set. Most had been in no condition to attack the heroes at the time, just like Doom himself, but had begun making preparations for when that time came._

_Sasha Hammer announced that she would reform the Maggia, which her cousin, Justin, had put out of commission, and would begin amassing wealth and members in order to make a direct strike on Iron Man. She had also shared the Titanium Man designs with Doom, which the doctor had in turn shared with the rest of the group to see what could be made of it. _

_AIM had begun reconstruction of the cyborg assassin, Whiplash, as well as the construction of a new Crimson Dynamo armor provided by Anton Harchov, former head of the defunct Project Pegasus. _

_Rhona Erwin began formulating a plan of constructing an unstoppable android doppelganger of herself, and began studying the technology Iron Man had used against Obadiah Stane's Guardsmen, in order to turn Stark's own inventions against him. _

_S.H.I.E.L.D. head Nick Fury had surprisingly joined the gathering as well, claiming that Stark and Potts' refusal to supply S.H.I.E.L.D. with weapons was intolerable, and that Iron Man had embarrassed him and his organization too many times. Fury had made it clear, however, that his alliance with the group was temporary, and that his organization would continue to pursue justice against each member of the cabal once Iron Man had been dealt with. Doctor Doom did not care about the man's motivations, but would continue to watch the general closely in case all was not as it seemed._

_Most notably, a plot from within the heart of the two Stark companies themselves had also begun as a result of this meeting. From his previous visit to Stark International at the invitation of Obadiah Stane, Doom had downloaded all information about his tech rival that he could, including employees and secret projects… projects that were kept hidden even from Stane's watchful eye and Howard Stark's before him. Among these had been a man by the name of Aldrich Killian; a scientist employed nearly twenty years earlier by Howard Stark, and who had been secretly commissioned by S.H.I.E.L.D. to create a new version of the Super Soldier Serum. Killian had already been long at work on a compound that served that very purpose, and accepted the resources S.H.I.E.L.D. had offered to help the work along. Doom had been particularly intrigued by this, and had invited Dr. Killian into the conspiracy against Stark and Potts. _

_Upon his return to Earth, Doom had discovered that parts of his body had been phased away with the damage Yogthulu had done to his soul. Although his soul was restored fully upon his return, his body was not, with patches of his skin, muscle, organs and even skeletal structure missing in various places upon and within his body. Yet, his body continued to support him – it simply was not nearly efficient enough for recovery. The scars that covered his face from the explosion years ago were one thing; he hid those behind his metal faceplate. The damage from Yogthulu was different; it left him in a profound state of weakness from which he could not recover naturally, yet did not allow him to die. _

_Killian's creation of the compound he called "Extremis" appeared to be exactly what Doom needed to restore his body to what it had been. After inviting Killian into the fold and explaining their common desire to cure themselves with the virus, the two evil doctors began engineering a sub-conspiracy, independent of the bounty against Stark and Potts, yet ultimately serving the purpose of sealing the pair's fate. First, Killian began to encourage a romantic relationship between his stepdaughter, Maya Hansen, and Tony Stark, in the hopes that the girl would eventually end up pregnant by Stark, allowing Killian to take his theory of "natural birth Extremis" in another direction using Stark's unique strain of the virus. _

_Second, Killian also met in secret with Stark International board member, Mitch Richards, who coincidentally was the older cousin of the new head of AIM, Kevin Kowalowski – who, through __**further**__ coincidence, had been a schoolmate of Stark and Potts, and was also a nephew to AIM's former Scientist Supreme, which explained how the unremarkable young man had come to be in charge of the organization as an act of nepotism. Although not privy to knowledge of the bounty's existence, Mitch Richards had ambitions to one day have a large controlling interest in both Stark International and Stark Solutions, and so was game to be in on the ruination of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, both of whom the young businessman despised. Killian, through his stepdaughter, and Richards, through his board membership, had shared a great deal of information with AIM about Tony Stark's inventions that were on file with both Stark companies, and Kowalowski had, in turn, shared that information with Doctor Doom. _

_It was through this conspiratorial passing along of inside info on Stark, that Rhona Erwin had obtained the specs of Iron Man's negator packs for use in her own plan against him. But, more importantly, it had also allowed Doom to view AIM's entire inventory of weapons technology. This had included a cloaking device that had been designed and traded several years earlier to the mercenary known as the Ghost, which Doom knew he could use in the future, with some modifications and improvements. Of greater significance to the doctor, however, was a device that had been built only months earlier by the head of the previous regime within AIM, Basil Sandhurst. The machine, called The Mainframe, had been based on technology Sandhurst had designed for AIM, and which focused on mind control. Sandhurst had intended to use his latest creation to achieve this on a global scale, but had needed the Extremis that resided within Tony Stark to bring this vision to fruition. Upon studying the schematics of this device and learning the details from the few remaining AIM scientists, Doom had begun thinking beyond his planned revenge against Iron Man._

_But all of that was still in the early planning stage, and had no bearing on the here and now. And here and now, Doctor Doom was putting his own version of the Ghost's cloaking tech to use. He was standing upon the wreckage of a train car, one which was part of a larger scene of carnage that he had initiated himself. The train had been derailed hours ago, with part of it having been submerged in the river, alongside which the tracks had run. _

_Harsh, freezing winds whipped snow all around in vicious swirls – also courtesy of the doctor's own handiwork. Doom had utilized minor weather manipulation technology to instigate a massive blizzard on the North American east coast, causing the coldest winter in decades for the city of New York. His plan had been to create a disaster and observe Iron Man and Rescue in action, to see where things currently stood with the pair. He was also curious as to whether he might be able to get them in a position of vulnerability that he could take advantage of while in his cloaked state, eliminating the need for the slow progress of the bounty invitees to even become involved. But mainly, this was reconnaissance. _

_Once the storm had raged for a few hours without anything happening that warranted intervention by Iron Man, Doctor Doom had taken matters into his own hands, yet again. He had derailed the train he currently stood upon, in such a manner that it would be chocked up to a consequence of the storm, of course. Iron Man and Rescue had been called to the scene when the search and rescue efforts had proven too volatile for the authorities to handle alone. The two had managed to retrieve some survivors from the freezing river, but it was now mainly a search for the corpses of passengers who were unaccounted for. It was morbid work, and the two were freezing and exhausted._

"_Rescue, need a break? Don't lie to me."_

"_I'm fine. Just needed to catch my breath."_

"_You know I can scan your vitals from here, right?"_

"_You know I can do the same, too?"_

_Their banter ended as they presumably switched to internal communication between their armors. He could have listened in if he wanted to, but there was a chance that they might have detected an eavesdropper on the communication line. Besides, what did it matter? They were probably arguing about each other taking risks or other such trivialities. Their actions would tell him all he needed to know. _

_It had seemed that Stark had abandoned his romantic interest in the girl, as he had moved on to courting Killian's stepdaughter rather quickly. Potts had also moved on to another young man who she attended school with. Still, the fact that they lived, ran a company, and fought crime together regularly, had Doom wondering how much of what the public saw was true. It was the main reason why he was here, now, taking matters into his own hands. He wanted to know if Stark's feelings for the girl had truly lessened, in which case he would need to make adjustments to the bounty and find another way to make the boy suffer. So far, the current crisis was not providing enough information for that, beyond the fact that they still cared for one another's health. That was too common to be useful to him. He needed more concrete answers._

_His sensors alerted him to an approaching airplane that would fly almost directly over this area. Realizing an opportunity, Doom took to the air, still silent and invisible to the world, leaving the armored pair to continue their muted bickering below._

_The mad doctor flew straight at the incoming aircraft, determining it to be a passenger airliner, filled to roughly four-fifths of its capacity with people who were most likely on their way to visit relatives for the Thanksgiving Day holiday that this wretched country would be celebrating in a week's time. Well, they would never reach their destinations or see their loved ones, but their flight __**would**__ serve a greater purpose now – __**his**__ purpose._

_He matched the plane's speed and moved in close to the engine located along the left wing. Reaching out, he touched the fingertips of his gauntlet upon its surface, immediately releasing a small army of nanobots that were stored within the metal encasing his hands. After releasing enough to do the job, he then flew over the craft and repeated the action with the engine on the other wing. Some of the nanobots were spreading across the full length of the aircraft, while the greater concentration of the machines embedded themselves into the engines as much as they could. _

_Doom slowed his own momentum, allowing the plane to pull ahead, and quickly calculated the precise details that would make his plan work. Once he did so, and as soon as the right moment came, Doom detonated all of the nanobots he had released._

_The explosion was arranged in such a way that the plane did not come apart in the air, but there was no chance of survival for any who were inside the craft, and it would likely be chalked up to the horrid weather conditions that led to the tragedy, especially since no sign of his nanobots would ever be recovered. The aircraft immediately began to plunge toward the spot where he had already derailed the train – just as he had wanted it to be._

_He swooped down a little lower to have a better view of what would happen. And what he witnessed was Iron Man taking to the air, obviously scanning the ruined craft to find the best way of stopping its descent. What managed to surprise even Doom was when the armored hero, apparently not willing to even bothering trying to make a futile attempt at turning the plane away from its projected point of impact, fired every weapon in his arsenal at the burning plane, reducing it from a flaming, plummeting vehicle to a flaming, plummeting debris field. _

_Iron Man disappeared from his view in the explosion, but Doctor Doom continued to track his signal as he plunged into the river amid most of the remains of the plane. It was not long before Rescue surfaced from the waters and began looking for her companion, even stopping to ask a member of the police on the scene where Iron Man had gone._

_The doctor watched as the girl dove back into the water, resurfacing now and then, searching frantically for the young inventor and having no success. After a few minutes, the armored heroine finally surfaced with a battered Iron Man in her grasp. As rescue workers began to enter the water in boats and rafts, making their way toward the far shore where the two had surfaced, the Potts girl set Iron Man upon the ground. _

"_Tony, talk to me! Say something to me, Tony!"_

_As Doom watched the girl use one of her repulsors to attempt a jump start of the battery in the boy's armor, he began to wonder if he had actually succeeded in terminating Iron Man this day. _

"_Tony! __**TONY**__!" her cries grew more desperate as she began to rip the damaged armor from his body. "Tony, open your eyes. Tony? NO!"_

_Potts disengaged her armor, retracting it into a backpack, which she then flung away from herself. She checked his breathing and his pulse, obviously finding neither as she began to administer mouth-to-mouth breathing and chest compressions in an effort to resuscitate the boy._

"_Come on, Tony! Don't you fucking do this to me! Don't you __**dare**__ do this to me, Stark!"_

_She began to sob, and so did the people who were beginning to gather around as they watched the girl try and continue to fail at bringing back the hero. She continued to try reaching him with her voice between CPR attempts._

"_Tony, please breathe! Please, baby, __**please**__ breathe! Breathe! I promise I'll tell everyone you're great in bed! I promise I'll let you sleep until nine! Just, please, Tony, please come back. You can't leave me! You can't just leave me like this!"_

_That settled it for Doom. He did not know where things stood between them, but it was clear that the two had feelings for one another that would make the loss of either unbearable to the survivor. Tony Stark was as close to death as one could be before reaching the point of no return, and he knew that he could let the boy perish, knowing that it was by his hand, weakened though it was, and not have to pay the bounty to any of the fools who had accepted the invitation._

_But, that would not be enough for the young Stark. It would be his death, yes, but __**only**__ his death. He had not suffered as Doom had decreed that he must, and he knew that the loss of the girl would be what would break the inventor to his core. Tony Stark could not die without knowing that kind of pain, that unique brand of sorrow. Doom would not allow it._

_Knowing that it would lead to greater torment down the road, Doctor Doom extended to his young opponent the only mercy he would ever grant him. Moving in close to the pair on the ground, unseen and unnoticed to all, Doom knelt down and placed the tip of a single finger against Tony Stark's nostril and released his few remaining nanobots. While they would probably conflict with the boy's Extremis for the next few hours, causing unforeseen complications to his overall condition, they would be able to revive him in short order, enough to keep him alive and allow the doctors to do their work. They would pass from his system within a day, leaving no trace behind that they had ever been within him._

"_I-I owe you… five bucks, Tony. You can't… you can't let me off the hook. Please, Tony. Please, don't die on me, Tony! Please, I can't-I can't do this alone. I need you! Please, I need you! I need you so much…"_

_The girl's pleas were annoying him greatly, but she should have no more need to do so. Any moment now…_

_Sure enough, as Pepper Potts leaned down to make one more attempt to breathe for Stark, the boy began to spit and cough water forth from his lungs._

"_Tony!"_

_The girl readjusted their positions so that his head lay in her lap._

"_It's alright, Tony. It's going to be alright."_

_Yes, this had definitely been a most illuminating evening. Doom had seen all he needed, and excused himself from the scene, knowing that none who were present would ever know that he was involved or to what extent. _

_But his plans for Tony Stark and Pepper Potts had only just begun._

xxxXXXxxx

It was extremely quiet around them – _too_ quiet for his taste, to say the truth; way too quiet for it to be considered nothing more than the natural state of the area they were currently in. For the last half a mile or so, the only noises that Tony had picked up near him belonged to those made by his companions: the sounds of deliberate yet careful footsteps, of stretching or rubbing fabrics, the roll of the stealth-activated _Earth Movers _behind them; _all_ man-made sounds. However, the expected tunes of nature were nowhere to be found. The wintery winds were eerily calm. The dark clouds above them refused to let go of their precious cargo. Not even the fauna that he knew lived in Latveria had dared to make an appearance thus far. Everything appeared to be still, dormant; practically dead, in fact.

According to his calculations, they were already in Latverian terrains, approximately five miles away from the edge of the capital, where Castle Doom was located. From his classes back at the Tomorrow Academy, Tony knew that Latveria was not known for its warm, open culture, or for the welcoming behavior of its citizens, but he knew that the country was heavily populated and very active – something they were yet to see for themselves. So far, and despite the fact that they were consciously walking thru the small towns and villages that rested at the bottom of the hills were Doomstadt was situated, not one soul had made its appearance. It was as if the entire country had been deserted… or as if its entire population had long ago been _exterminated_.

"It was never this lonely, when I was here," Maya Hansen said aloud, as if reading Tony's grim and suspicious thoughts. While it was true that the brunette had not gotten plenty of opportunities to abandon her post inside Castle Doom to stroll the city, she knew enough about the ways of the country to realize that the current loneliness of the suburb they were in was an appallingly uncommon trait for it.

"Maybe Doom sent his people underground to keep them safe," Scott reasoned, his visor picking up no signs of anyone or anything else beyond his teammates and of the digging tech they were dragging behind.

"That sounds too humanitarian for the likes of Doom," Rhodey commented, his hands resting on the straps of his modified, War Machine backpack.

"A monarch is only a ruler if he has people to command," Gene said, also highly disturbed by the fact that their party appeared to be the only sample of people in the entire land.

"Well, he rules the world now," Whitney Stane interjected, her mask detecting no signs of life either. "Who needs a small country when you have an entire planet at your mercy?"

"That is probably the worst part of it all," Kurt suddenly appeared next to Tony. "What he did with what he saw being no longer of need."

Gene and Tony exchanged worried looks, both recalling their first-hand experience at finding out how little the Doctor valued human life that was not his own or of his kin; how he had once thrown the two of them and Howard Stark at the jaws of a multidimensional creature, all without even batting an eye. Neither Tony nor Gene doubted that the maniac they had come to fight could have yet again made similar arrangements; even if just to say that he had done so just because he could.

Tony's head turned to his right to stare at an equally wary Nick Fury, and then to his left to eye a rather watchful Maria Hill. The genius had no doubt that similar thoughts to his were crossing the minds of everyone present, as none of the members of the resistance were here because they were naïve, slow to react or stupid. They were a group composed of experienced heroes, skilled mutants, high-tech vigilantes, peace-keeping agents, and trained assassins. Even if their strength was not in their numbers – or at least compared to the previous armies that had beforehand made an effort to take down Doctor Doom, it was not – their individual abilities made them a force to be reckoned with. Working together as a group, well… it made it even more alarming, to say the least, that they had been allowed to walk this close to the capital without encountering any attempts at stopping their advances. He would have thought that the ruler would have wanted to quickly dispose of the greatest threat that could walk up to his doorstep; however, it was as if he was welcoming them with open arms.

Perhaps, _this _had been Doctor Doom's plan all along. Perhaps, he had set everything in motion so that he was able to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the fireworks; let the heroes do all the work for him, and then reap the benefits once they were on his turf.

Tony frowned at the grave thought, which set off all kinds of warning bells in his mind. He suddenly extended his arms to his sides to signal for everyone to stop where they stood, and then looked over his left shoulder to stare at Hawkeye, one word practically forcing its way out of his mouth.

"Shoot."

No sooner than Tony finished saying the word, Clint Barton's arrow was already flying past their ranks. The projectile followed the expected path, stopping only when it encrusted itself onto a building's wall. Everyone remained still for another minute, all waiting for some type of counterattack, or maybe even a sign that their presence was known to the Latverian ruler or citizens, but nothing appeared to change at all. They all knew about the calm before the storm, but this seemed to be the calm _before_ the calm before the _shit_ storm.

"I really don't like this," Tony said to no one in particular.

"Try again?" Clint asked.

"No. Let _me_ try," Kurt said, his right palm on his chest. "I'll retrieve your arrow."

Tony silently stared at the man for a moment, frowned at the idea, but still reluctantly nodded his approval. Other than Gene and the Living Laser, Kurt was the only other person that could appear and disappear on command. If there was any chance of danger awaiting them when jumping a few feet in front of themselves, it was best if the task was undertaken by someone who could potentially pull away from a threat as quickly as a passing thought.

If they saw it coming, that was.

Sensing the palpable gravity of the situation, everyone else took on an offensive stance. Rogue and Living Laser levitated a few feet above the ground. Hawkeye readied and aimed another arrow. Bruce prepared to call on the Hulk. Maya, Widow, Fury, Maria and Jarvis all cocked their guns. Happy, Rhodey and Tony placed their palms on the center of their backpacks. Scott prepared to lower the blast shield on his visor. Gambit loaded up a few cards with kinetic energy. Beast, Black Panther and Chameleon raised their fists in the air. Jean Grey placed her hands on her temples, and Gene Khan clenched his hands in preparation for using his rings.

They all held their breath. They all narrowed their eyes. They all felt their hearts threatening to stop and their bodies ready to engage at the slightest provocation. Nevertheless, they all patiently waited to react when Nightcrawler disappeared in a cloud of smoke. And then they all lowered their defense when they saw the mutant successfully standing by the place the arrow had stopped.

After looking left and right, back and front, and then up and down, Kurt easily pulled the arrow out of the wall and then proceeded to twirling it in his fingers once. Following a rather pronounced shrug and left tilt of the head, he began walking towards his team. The projectile had traveled about sixty feet away from where it had been released by Clint Barton, but Kurt was only able to take twenty short steps before he was suddenly and violently tossed backwards and towards the same wall he had just been standing by, seconds ago.

Watching Nightcrawler being flung back caused everyone to instantly return to their offensive stance. While concern for their teammate shone in their face, and despite their instinctive need to go check up on the fallen member, they all remained unnervingly still and silent, their eyes traveling all around them to try to pinpoint where the attack had come from. However, when nothing out of the ordinary stood out to them and the city remained as silent as it had been thus far, Tony's head snapped to his right.

"Whitney! Do you see anything?"

"No," the blonde shook her head vehemently. "The mask is not picking up anything."

"Rhodey?"

The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. slammed his hand on the center of his chest and immediately became enveloped by a smaller version of his suit of armor. Tony waited a few more seconds for the AI to pick up on anything before them with its multi-spectrum view, but when all he heard was War Machine's loud cursing, the inventor knew that nothing had been found by Rhodey either.

"Anyone?" Tony's tone showed his mounting frustration. "Gene? Jean?"

The telepath shook her head, and Mandarin snarled.

"Gambit!"

A handful of cards were immediately released by Remy, but the payload did not make it past twenty feet – mirroring roughly the same distance that Nightcrawler had been able to travel before being pushed back. Some of the cards evaporated on contact, and the rest simply bounced back, just as Kurt had.

"Is it a force field? Can we blow it up?" Fury asked.

In response, Tony suited up. He then aimed his hand repulsors towards the front and released two large bursts of energy, one from each hand, only for them to bounce right back and hit him square in the chest.

"UGH!"

"Tony!"

A flash of red and gold flew past the other members of the resistance as the hero was flung back, their mouths nearly gaping at the unexpected act. Before Iron Man was able to slow down his flight or even attempt to turn around in midair, he hit another invisible barrier from behind. The ricocheting effect of the second hit made the hero slam his front against the ground, skidding on the hard surface until he nearly reached his previous standing position. At first sight, the attack on their leader appeared to be as random, and its cause as inconclusive, as it had been on Kurt. However, as they concentrated their gazes on the aftereffects of Rhodey using his repulsors at a lower-impact range on the same spot from which Tony had just been bounced off, the source of the attack was finally revealed.

Wavy ripples of floating energy began rolling all over the place, mixing the view of the area around them with something dark-colored that they could not immediately identify. As they traveled from side to side, the waves became longer and taller, the origin of them slowly taking shape before their eyes until there was no doubt in their minds what they had merrily walked themselves into. It was not a force field that surrounded them from all sides: it was an army of unusually large and heavily armed Doombots – an army that, unbeknownst to them, had been following them since entering the country; an army that had remained undetected by using the same cloaking technology the Doctor himself had used to infiltrate inside the Stark penthouse. One that, the inventor knew in his heart, only James Howard Stark or Pepper Potts would have been able to see with the naked eye.

One that, Tony feared, could be the single reason why his redhead had presumably not made it out of the Alps alive, and why she had never reached their camp at the final checkpoint in Kübekháza.

What if the avalanche had not been an accident? What if Doom had been there with Team A, all along, only to take the ginger away at the perfect time? Victor von Doom knew about the workings of Extremis. He knew that Pepper could see his aura and James could see through his cloaking device. He perhaps had even discerned that James Stark's immunity to the Mainframe's waves had been inherited from his mother's version of the virus. What if removing Pepper Potts from the picture had been done so that she was not here to warn them of the army slowly creeping up on them and their path? What if Tony's hopes that his wife was still alive and breathing were false?

_No_, Tony clenched his eyes shut. The hero, while still on the ground, now lay on all fours, his fists trembling in crippling denial. _No. She made it. I __**know**__ she made it. I know she's still alive!_

"Aw, shit," Happy followed his groan by strongly hitting the front of his backpack with his right fist. The item unfolded instantly and enveloped him in the base structure of the Hulk Buster armor, which was then fully completed by the rest of the armor flying off the top of an _Earth Mover_ and attaching itself onto the jock. The entire feat took no more than three seconds, but it was enough time for everyone else to begin and complete their own version of suiting up.

"Are you OK?" Tony heard Rhodey ask.

"Yeah," Tony finally stood up from the ground, his right, armored hand vigorously rubbing his lower back as his mind told his heart to forget about his grim doubts for the moment. "But I fucking miss Extremis right about now. That's gonna leave a mark."

"Better than a hole," Natasha replied, almost without thinking, after remembering a similar conversation between her and the inventor from a while back. It was rather out-of-place for her to joke at a time like this, especially when she was unsure of where to aim her gun when the now visible army of Doombots took a uniform step towards the group, but her response triggered the expected response from the blue-eyed inventor.

"Silver lining, really?" Tony smirked despite himself; a little distraction was greatly appreciated right now.

"That's all I've got," she smiled. "Although, you _still_ owe me an island, Stark."

"Sorry, Natasha," Tony shrugged, also recalling their conversation after capturing Madame Masque in their search for finding the redhead she had taken. "I gave it to my wife."

"Is this really the best time for this?" Gene, now in full Mandarin getup, said inside his helmet, his fists quickly lifting in the air when the robots took yet another step towards them.

"I guess Doom _does_ know we're here, huh?" Bruce asked with a sad sigh when the army shortened the distance between them once more, and he then turned into the Hulk. The green version of his angry alter ego had again replaced the smarter, grey version that had once existed. After battling the Makluan Overlord, the alien lizard had not only reverted Dr. Banner to his human form in order to defeat him, but the process of doing so had somehow restored the stronger, but more simple-minded form of the beast for all subsequent transformations Bruce had undergone. "Hulk _HATE_ robots!"

"To be fair, I don't think they like _us_ very much, either," Maya gulped at seeing the mechanical Doom look-alikes take yet another step towards them, forcing her to stand closely behind Iron Man. The machines were nearly identical to their creator, save for the fact that they looked just slightly less advanced than Doom's personal armor, and they lacked the green cloak that completed the mad doctor's fashion statement. These Doombots were not meant to be decoys; they were soldiers.

"Keep'em away from the _Earth Movers_," Tony ordered as the bots took another step.

"Think they can see them behind the stealth mode?" Maria Hill asked.

"Something tells me we're about to find out."

Following his verbal observation, Scott Summers placed his right index and middle finger on the right side of his visor, making it the last move the Doombots allowed of the heroes before the robots lifted their arms and aimed them towards the group to begin their attack.

xxxXXXxxx

It was like being back in New York when the Makluan invasion had taken place. However, and in hindsight, Tony Stark would have _preferred_ taking on the alien lizards again than having to face Doctor Victor von Doom in his own land.

The passing of time had led him here; to be within miles of knocking at the door of the greatest villain he had ever encountered in his entire life… _if _he could get past his Doombots. Every action taken since accidentally sending the ruler to another dimension had been in preparation for this moment – for the inevitable instant when he had to risk his life for the sake of the entire planet – _again_. That particular time in New York City, when the genius had been inside the alien spaceship and he had held back the Makluan Overlord so that Gene could teleport Pepper, Rhodey and Bruce to safety, Tony Stark had honestly thought that he was going to die.

He had never told anyone, not even his beloved redhead, that he had not expected to make it out of the ship with his life. The reality of it had not hit him, however, until he had felt his body falling to the ground. His head had been spinning, his body had been in pain and highly unresponsive, and the only thing he had discerned in those moments while reaching the streets of New York in freefall had been the voice of his fiery friend via the intercom. He had never told her, and she had never asked about it either, but Tony had heard, loud and clear, the panic in her voice when she had called his name.

_"Tony? Oh, no! NO!"_

He had never before heard that tone of utter fear coming from her, and it had frightened him in ways that he had never felt until then. He knew that _she _was alright – Gene would not allow anything to befall the redhead, even way back then. But he feared what his possible death would do to her. He had known what she had been trying to convey to him all throughout the battle – what he had been clever enough to delay. He had known that she felt something special for him, even if she had never openly or too extremely acted upon it. He had feared not so much the idea of dying a hero – but of hurting the ginger with his untimely passing. More than anything, in fact, he had feared not having the opportunity to tell her how special she too was for him.

But he had made it. And so had she. And then the _real _struggle had begun.

And now, here he was, many years later, punching his armored right fist through a Doombot, and then pulling out his arm to see it covered in blood.

_What?!_

He blinked rapidly to focus on his upturned palm and forearm, hoping that his eyes were just misleading him – that perhaps the color of his suit of armor and the sunlight above them were working together to play tricks on him. However, when the red liquid began pouring down to the ground not only from his arm, but also from the stomach area of the Doombot itself that he still held onto with his left hand, Tony Stark had just enough sense to gasp.

"How?"

While still holding the robot by its right shoulder, the inventor rushed to remove the helmet portion of the bot. The thick piece of metal dented when it fell to the ground, leaving in its wake the face of the redheaded woman he had just killed.

"No," Tony opened his faceplate. "No. NO!"

More out of instinct than common sense, Iron Man's left hand moved to rest on her lower back to support her weight, her body instantly becoming limp as the blood left her innards. With his right hand, he tried checking for a pulse, brushed the matted hair from her face, and he then choked back a sob when he saw a trail of red trickling out from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her mouth hung even more, prompting memories of his nightmare to return to him.

"Pepper? No. No, Pepper! Please, NO!"

The commotion around him became unimportant to his ears as he fell to his knees. He stared at the hole in her stomach; at the guts and other vital organs that now lay on the ground behind them, and he had to fight back the urge to retch. It was not the first time he had ever killed someone, and it was not the first time he saw first-hand the gory results of taking someone's life. But this _was_ the first time he saw it happening to someone he loved.

"Pepper… baby… how… I didn't mean to… Pepper… no… Pep!"

His entire body trembled. His eyes filled with tears. And as he was about to scream the guilt and agony that was drowning him from the inside out, he noticed something important that he should have seen before.

The woman in his arms – the _dead_ woman he held, had _long_, red hair.

Images of Pepper's recent haircut flashed before his eyes.

He immediately tossed back and forth the hair from her neck, examined it meticulously, narrowed his eyes, and then growled.

The scar Ghost had left on her neck was nowhere to be found.

Then, just as suddenly as this realization had come to him, the woman in his arms was no longer a young redhead, but a much older blonde.

Despite his arms wanting to just release the corpse he held in them, if for nothing else but just due to complete anger and surprise, the blue-eyed billionaire forced himself to slowly lay down the body on the ground. The poor woman was not at fault here, whoever she was. Yet, he had still killed her. He had still taken her innocent life.

He blinked again; harder this time, and then closed his faceplate.

His HUB's screen began displaying all kinds of contradicting notifications, adding to his already exceedingly confused state of mind. When the scanner skimmed over the robotic parts, the software detected nothing but the metal suit and claimed that no pilot was inside. However, when the same scan ran through the exposed head of the woman, it noted that the individual was a female human and that she had passed.

There was nothing on or in the Doombot armor itself that explained why he had seen Pepper's face on the woman instead of what appeared to be her real features. His AI was not picking up any anomaly in his body, the presence of a bioweapon, or even the manifestation of the Mainframe's waves. It just did not make sense to him – none of it did. His mind simply could not come up with a logical explanation for what he had just witnessed. He was not sure if he had been dreaming, imagining, hallucinating or what. All he knew was that he had thought, even if for just a short minute, that he had killed Pepper Potts.

Nonetheless, what was even more disconcerting for him at the moment was the fact that, without knowing what had just taken place or how to keep it from happening again, it could come back to haunt him when he least expected it. When he least needed for it to act out.

He slowly got to his feet, his eyes never leaving the woman, guilt temporarily taking a backseat due to a lack of understanding. He licked his dried lips, held his head between his hands, and then looked up and to his right when he heard a statement that he should have uttered himself the moment he had seen blood dripping out of the supposed bot.

"They're not robots!" Jarvis's scream made everyone else hesitate for an instant. "There are people inside!"

Iron Man focused his gaze towards the standing location of the butler to see the same expression of complete shock on his face that he knew he had probably had on himself, moments ago. While battling it, Jarvis had managed to remove the helmet of his robotic opponent, and he was now fighting hard to keep at bay the attacks of the man held inside. Tony flew directly towards the compartmentalized chaos, stunned the man inside the suit with a light electric shock from his repulsor, and then fixated his attention on the visibly shaken older man before him.

"J, are you OK?"

"Yes," Jarvis nodded, opened his mouth again to continue his retort, but it was interrupted by the rest of the team coming to terms with what they were up against.

"What did you just say?" T'Challa held back the killing blow he was about to deliver to the robot in his hand, and opted to simply removing the helmet from its head. The King of Wakanda then frowned in confusion behind his mask before he aimed his attention towards Edwin Jarvis and Tony Stark.

"This one is empty," Black Panther continued, "There's no one inside!"

"This one is not!" Whitney Stane said, her back to Maya Hansen, making sure to protect the helpless brunette. "There's a kid inside!"

"A, _what_?" Rhodey immediately switched away from using lethal force when he realized the robot he was fighting against also held a small child inside. "Dammit!"

"I don't understand," Jarvis shook his head left and right, watching as his peers' attacks lowered in intensity and thus in efficacy as well.

"I don't either," Tony opened his faceplate once more, knelt to check for a pulse on the unconscious man he had just stunned, and then stood up again.

"Who are these people?" Jarvis sidestepped when two more Doombots approached them after uttering his question. The man then easily teamed up with Tony to temporarily incapacitate the incoming robots without actually fatally harming them before staring towards Iron Man once again.

"Citizens?" Tony's eyes alternated between watching their backs and staring at the hesitant battling taking place around them. "They may be the people of Latveria."

"That sick son of a bitch," Gambit added as he began using his cards to keep the robots from getting near him rather than killing them. "How are we supposed to fight them, then?"

"Jean," Iron Man closed his faceplate. "Can you read their minds? Can you tell which bot has someone inside?"

"No," the redhead replied, her hands motioning from side to side to move Doombots out of her way in order to make a path for herself towards the center of the fight. "I think the helmets are preventing my powers from getting through."

"Just like Magneto's," Tony groaned. "Gene?"

"Can't tell, either. Something's blocking my rings!"

_Fuck! _Tony inwardly groaned._ It's Doom. It __**has**__ to be Doom!_

"Uhm, Stark?" Hawkeye began walking towards the middle of the fight as well, noting how everyone else was starting to gather around the still invisible _Earth Movers _as the number of robots began to go up. "Little help here?"

"I know! I'm thinking!"

"Can you think faster?" Rhodey asked as he picked up Maria Hill and Nick Fury and flew them away from the new wave of bots.

"Just a second, alright?" Tony snapped, smoke figuratively coming out of his head with how hard it was at work.

"Tony, we have to do something right now," Happy began, "There's too many of them already, but we can't fight them back!"

"I know! I know! Just… give me a second… let me think… let me…"

"That's not fast enough!" Maya bit her lip at the sheer number of newly approaching Doombots.

"Shut it, all of you!" Tony yelled. "I just need a minute to–"

His words died on his lips. His head snapped up to eye the enemy. And when the memory of a similar situation came to him, he smiled. He did not have Extremis activated in him to fry the circuits of the entire army – just as he had done so with AIM's robots, once before. But he _did_ have another way to take down every single one of Doom's look-alikes at his disposal; he just needed to do it alone.

"Gene," Iron Man stared up at the floating Mandarin. "Get them out. Get to the Castle. Start it all!"

It took a nanosecond for the Great Khan to understand Tony's words. But when his rings began glowing brightly, Tony knew that the man was now following his same train of thought.

"The _Earth Movers_, too!" the genius added before he took to the skies.

"What?" Rhodey's question was immediately answered when he felt heat covering every part of his body. He had experienced this before – once in his entire life – and as he watched his armored hands beginning to glow white and his eyes losing focus, War Machine realized what Tony had just done.

"Tony, no!" Whitney stretched her arm towards the hero, but it was too late to stop his plan.

The genius briefly closed his eyes when the bright light of teleportation blinded him, leaving him alone with an army of robots waiting to take his life.

Yes. It was definitely just like being back at home during the Makluan invasion. But this time, he was _not_ going to allow himself to die.

Or at least not today.

Not now.

"Sorry, folks," the young billionaire said under his breath as he powered up his sonic blasters and extended his arms down. "But a headache is better than death."

He counted down the seconds for the blasters to be at full charge, took in a deep breath, and then screamed as he released half of his armor's battery power as a combination of knockout and EMP waves. He knew what he was risking by setting off such an unprecedented attack, but he could only hope that it paid off. If the numbers were correct, then the blast would not reach the capital. If his calculations were right on the spot, his team would not suffer the effects of said attack.

Once the wave dissipated and the resulting light came to an end, Iron Man smirked smugly at seeing the positive results of his reckless act on his descent to the middle of the battleground. The army of Doombots, every single one of the robots, was down for the count. The ones that had contained and controlled the people of Latveria had simply shut down as their pilots had been knocked out by his sonic blasters. The fully automated ones had ceased to function from his EMP wave. Leftover sparks of electricity randomly made the metal parts twitch, but other than some minimal movements here and there, his suit did not detect any fighting spirit within them.

His rashness, for once, had paid off.

Or at least it appeared as it had, until he heard a familiar sound coming from behind.

He slowly turned around in place, focused on the city, and then held back a groan.

Another army of robots was approaching him; one twice as large as the previous one had been. And before he could fly away to try to make a run for it, he was hit once again. This time, however, the attacks came from all around. He flipped over so that he lay on his back, stared above him, and then cursed aloud when he saw multiple flying robots all aiming their charged up palms at him.

_Shit_, he swallowed hard.

Maybe he _was _going to die tonight.


	14. Chapter 13

**Guest Review Responses**

There was no Guest love for me for the last chapter (I kinda didn't deserve it, I know!), but I do want to thank _Anna Katari_ for following and favoring all _The Last Chronicles_ stories. I started sending thank-you via PMs, but I'm starting to feel guilty for spamming people's inboxes :)

Anyway, here's the latest chapter. _Aftermath_ and _Oh, Yeah: Her_ will also be updated shortly.

* * *

**Chapter 13 **

"What in the actual _fuck_ did you just do, Gene?" Whitney was the first one to practically shove her uncovered face onto Mandarin's masked one after dropping her camouflage. "_Why_ did you leave Tony behind?"

"Are you deaf, Stane?" Mandarin replied, after removing his helmet as well, and clenched his hands to keep himself from punching the aggravating blonde right in the face. "Didn't you _hear_ what he said to me?"

"And you didn't realize he wasn't thinking straight?" War Machine pointed at the man.

"We're not supposed to leave anyone behind!" Scott Summers angrily added, barely being held back by his wife. "We've already lost Pepper _and_ Iceman, and now we–"

Cyclops halted the rest of his livid reply when the sound of a loud boom and a nearly-blinding bright light shining in the distance caught the attention of everyone.

"Holy shit," Arthur Parks exclaimed with a shiver when he felt his pores tingle with the intense energy disturbance in the air. "What the hell was that?"

"EMP bomb," Rhodey read aloud the information from his display. "And a sonic blast, too. A _big_ one. Iron Man's doing."

Even though the sizable attack did not necessarily reach their current location, the true magnitude of the round was obvious to them not only from the massive, noticeable aftershock, but also from the readings on their tech's screens. There was no doubt in their minds that the effort needed to release such a powerful attack had been rather substantial; as it was also clear to them that Tony had probably depleted his options for being able to defend himself by performing said counterattack.

Once the blast ended and the city became quiet again, Rogue, Rhodey, Whitney, and Maria Hill all began fast-walking towards the origin of the attack.

"_Cherie_, stop," Gambit grabbed Rogue by the arm, earning him the deepest glare he had ever seen on the woman.

"What do you mean: stop?" Rogue pulled her arm away from Gambit's hold. "We need to go back for him!"

"No. He did this so we could keep going. We aren't going back," Gene replaced his helmet on his head once more.

"And he's done doing whatever it was," War Machine interjected. "We should go get him out of it, now, while we still can."

"And undo what he just did?" Mandarin spat. "If whatever he did worked, he'll catch up with us. You know how stubborn Stark is. And, if it didn't… then we'd waste his efforts if we go back for him. We _can't _go back."

"Gene's right: we can't do that," Living Laser said with a sad shake of the head. He wanted to return for Tony as well, but he knew that there was something of greater importance to be done while time still appeared to somewhat be on their side. Going back for Tony was the right thing to do; but it was not the _best_ thing to do at the moment.

"Yes, we can!" Whitney began, her spirits not yet crushed by the negativity in the group. "Are you all fucking crazy? We can't leave him behind! We need to–"

"_Shut_ UP!" Happy Hogan's sudden outburst made everyone turn to face the jock, their jaws slightly ajar at the premise. He removed his faceplate to reveal his full-of-frustration face while he wildly gestured with his arms as he spoke.

"Just, stop it! It's done! He did it! We're here! Don't have time to go back. Now, let's suck it up and go do what we came for! Let's go do what Tony wanted us to do!"

"But, Happy," War Machine shook his head, his brain not being able to believe that he was hearing these words from the usually lighthearted man who had always jumped at the opportunity to help the young billionaire. "We can't just leave Tony alone to–"

"Doom won't kill him," Maya wiped tears from her eyes, surprised at how unprepared she felt she was to be in the middle of a war that she had been an unwilling participant in orchestrating. "He won't kill him. He needs him, remember? He… he'll be alright."

"Are you sure about that?" a now conscious Kurt asked, his eyes staring towards the area they had just been taken from against their wishes.

"Can any of us be sure about anything, at this point?" the brunette replied with a shrug, pointing out the agonizing reality that very little had gone as planned – other than, of course, the fact that they were now at Doom's doorstep, at last. It was painful to say and recognize, but the truth was that no amount of careful planning would have ever made this mission as simple as distinguishing black from white.

Finding no immediate, genuine answer to the botanist's question, Kurt's shoulders deflated and he looked down. The mutant already felt as if he was failing to keep up his end of the bargain – _his_ part of the mission. Pepper had been lost to the Alps; and now Tony was possibly gone, as well. They did not have much of a chance of winning without them; but turning back was not an option either. And neither was asking Doom if he could give them a few extra hours to get their shit together.

As much as everyone hated to admit it, Gene included, they were already living on borrowed time.

"Hogan's right," Nick Fury said after no one else argued about going back for Tony; the man taking the lead now that the genius was nowhere in sight. "We need to end this. Now."

The members of the resistance sighed sharply and then alternated between staring in the direction where they had been ambushed by the Doombots, and towards the front entrance of the imposing-looking castle a few feet away from their current location. They then exchanged defeated looks amongst each other before reality hit them in the face once more. If Tony Stark had been able to keep going with the mission, even after knowing that his wife might have died because of a decision made by him, then they had no right to halt their mission at this stage just because their leader was elsewhere; they _too_ could continue pushing through until the end.

Not only was this outright necessary; Tony Stark _expected_ them to.

Silence and grim faces spoke volumes of their current feelings and thoughts; of how much they evidently understood what needed to be done – but these two aspects did not appear to be loud enough for some of them. For some of them, words still needed to be said; thoughts still needed to be brought to life.

"For Pepper," Happy said, his head aiming towards the sky; guilt eating him up for not being close to his fiery friend when the accident had happened. He had been her official bodyguard for years and, even if the title was no longer his, the jock knew he would forever consider it his duty to watch over the redhead, come what may.

"For Bobby," Rogue closed her eyes, her thoughts being about her lost best friend, and she then looked down. Her feelings for Gambit and her feelings for Iceman were completely different in nature, but both were rather strong – the former being of romantic love; and the latter being akin to one would develop for the brother she never had and that she had not even know she had wanted.

"For Tony," Rhodey said after a gulp, remorse also making a home of his heart. Even after he had promised himself that he would never again allow his two best friends to perish before it was their time, here he was once more, wondering if his _brother _and _sister _were still alive. He had failed them twice in the same year already – the least he could do at this point was making sure their son was rescued alive.

Everyone had had different reasons for joining with S.H.I.E.L.D. in their quest to stop Doom; and some of these motives had evolved throughout their time on Muir Island. However, the sense of calling to fulfilling the cause had never faltered; it had actually increased. No matter how tough the task had gotten thus far, and no matter how much the current odds of winning were skewing towards the negative side, there was no stopping now.

The world needed them. A baby boy needed them.

No more innocent blood deserved to be spilled because of a cruel, despot son of a bitch. No more innocent lives would be taken by him – and their own lives, they knew, did not count.

They were not in it for the glory or for the fame – they were in it because it needed to be done.

The entire team took yet another moment of silent reflection and eyed one another with a look of renewed appreciation – a look of possible goodbyes. Nonetheless, when they all stood up straight, squared their shoulders, took in a deep breath, and then looked towards Nick, the man knew the time had finally come.

"You know what to do, people," Fury unceremoniously began. "Let's get it done."

xxxXXXxxx

_Maya Hansen's startled look was understandable and expected. _

_The young woman had just finished having a meeting with Aldrich Killian, not half an hour ago, and she was rather flustered and upset, for several reasons. She had been forced to listen to her stepfather prattle on and on about how selective Extremis could be, and how that had been one of the causes of her two years of failure with Tony Stark. Killian had not held back in thoroughly listing all the reasons why she had not been the correct person for the job, how she had been entirely doomed from the start, and of how little of a chance she had actually had of ever catching the attention of the young Stark._

_It was one thing to know and acknowledge, on a personal and internal level, that the heart of the one you loved would never be yours, no matter how hard you tried. It was another entirely to hear a man you despised state aloud all the ways you were not worthy of being treasured by who you loved._

_Like trash, that was how Maya Hansen currently felt; like trash that was not even good enough to be recycled for any cause._

_ Killian had been using a donated sample of one of her own ova, and one of the sperm samples from Tony that had been stored away in her lab. She had managed to obtain the samples after finally convincing Tony to begin a sexual relationship with her after Pepper had left him, and it had been difficult to do so discreetly and without contaminating them. Aldrich had showed her the two newly-thawed specimens under a microscope, having been placed near each other in the right setting to instigate artificial insemination under laboratory conditions. What had resulted from it, had finally finished breaking her heart._

_To her surprise and confusion, Tony's sperm cells had started out heading straight for her ovum specimen, as they were naturally supposed to, but had then deviated from all expectations. As soon as they had neared the egg, they had seemed to recoil, as if they had smelled something rotten and had wanted to get away from the fumes. The sperm had begun to circle the ovum for a few seconds, acting almost as if they were taking a survey of it, and had then darted off in all directions. Despite the long time the male and female reproductive cells had been together in the dish, not one sperm had made any effort to fertilize her egg. Puzzled and feeling a little hurt deep down, she had eventually and slowly pulled away from the microscope, her pride beaten to a pulp. _

_Killian had then gone on to hypothesize that Maya had never had a chance at becoming pregnant from Stark, even if he had taken every opportunity to have unprotected sex with her multiple times a day – something that would have never happened, anyway. Aldrich had attributed this fact to his belief that Tony Stark's strain of Extremis had somehow managed to sense the strain that had lurked in the DNA code of Pepper Potts, even before it had been awakened. Tony's romantic interest in Pepper, which had already existed and had been growing stronger before he had injected himself with the virus, had become irreversible once the genius had subconsciously realized there was someone else like him. And once the new virus in his body had detected the presence of another compatible strain in its proximity, that was all she wrote for any other woman that ever tried reigning in him. _

_If Killian's theory was true, it meant that Tony's mind and body had both been conditioned by Extremis to have an unending emotional bond with – and unmatched physical desire for – Pepper Potts, above any other woman. It shed light on Tony's refusal to remove Pepper from his life while simultaneously telling himself he needed to in order to keep her safe. It explained why he could never truly let her go. If he could have done so, it would have hurt, of course, like any other man in any other relationship would feel after taking such action. But with Tony, his mind and body had already adjusted themselves to make it impossible for him to move on from Pepper or to have a fulfilling life with any other woman. He had not been able to fall in love with Maya, despite all the effort he had made to do so, and regardless of all she had done to win his heart, literally because no other woman would ever be good enough for him other than Pepper Potts. _

_Maya had spent two years with Tony, and although she had genuinely wanted to be with him, her mission and her feelings had both been destined to fail all along. Tony's sperm had refused to fertilize any ova that did not belong to Pepper Potts, and that had really been frustrating, to say the least, for a myriad of reasons; the top one being that Maya had wanted to fulfill her mission and have the inventor's baby, so that no other woman who became pregnant by Tony Stark ever had to give up her child for Killian's and Doom's cause. Even now, at this stage of the mission, she could somewhat accept that Tony's __**heart**__ did not want any woman that was not Pepper; his love for the redhead really was genuine. But to know that even his sperm, the one part of a man's reproductive system that he could not control once it left his body, willingly refused her as well… _

_That, to be completely honest, had stung her like a son of a bitch._

_Killian had suspected that Tony's Extremis had acknowledged his lack of interest in her and had reacted accordingly, preventing her from becoming impregnated by the inventor during all of their sexual encounters. Now, having proven it to be true in a lab, her stepfather had promptly and openly mocked her efforts and her feelings, and her hatred for him now swelled to the point where she had needed to find some solitude to cool down for a while. _

_She had already sworn to make the man pay for turning her mother over to Doom after coming to Latveria and, at this point, she was truthfully wondering how she could have ever idolized him and seen him as a role model, as shady and heartless as he had turned out to be. For ten years, since he had married her mother, she had been grateful that this amazing, if somewhat odd man, had come into her life, filling the role of a father she had never known. She had looked up to him and his genius, and he had even inspired her to pursue a career in science. He had been the type of adoptive father that Pepper Potts had had in Virgil Potts, with the slight caveat that Killian had not honestly wanted to be anyone's father, role model, or the sort._

_Looking back on it now, knowing it had all just been an act, a cover for his false life as he toiled away on Extremis at Stark International, Maya wished she had never known him. She wished that her mother had never laid eyes on the deceitful man. She wished that her birth father had never abandoned her and her mother before she had been born. She wished that her life had turned out to be a lot different than it actually was – she wished that she could have had the ginger's life. The roles were slightly reversed, but enough for one to be much better than the other, and the irony behind the fact that she and Pepper – who she was now aware was essentially her stepsister – had both been raised by an adoptive father, and that they also shared a familial relation on top of it all, even before it had been known, was just a tad too upsetting to acknowledge just yet._

_So many wasted opportunities and remorseful what-if's to ponder, yet her time of peace by herself, secluded away in her room/lab in Doom's castle, suddenly ended without much further ado. The door to her room opened without her consent, and without any preceding verbal warning or even a simple knock, to allow an annoyingly, overconfident-looking Kevin Kowalowski to stroll right in, as if the stupid man owned the place, bringing out in her a simultaneously angry and startled look._

"_What the hell are you doing here, Kowalowski?! Get the fuck out," she screamed at him, partly surprised by her unforeseen use of expletives. She was certainly not one to curse or insult people for the heck of it, but she had nothing but contempt for the arrogant and inept head of AIM. In fact, she would much rather prefer to return to Killian to hear another round of insults from the scientist than to even __**think **__about talking to Kevin at all._

"_Now, now, Hansen: there's no need to get your old-lady panties in a wad. Calm down. I'm here to talk to you about something very important." _

_Kevin stood next to her sitting form and placed a hand on her desk, leaning his weight against it. Maya frowned at him, but then decided against lashing out at him, if just so that he would move on sooner rather than later._

"_What is it, then?" Maya crossed her arms and rapped her fingers against her bent elbow. "Make it quick."_

_Kevin reached into the right pocket of his pants and pulled out one of AIM's custom touch-pad communicators, or __**AIM-pod**__, lacking any official term for it. He typed into it for a moment, slightly repositioned his body, then turned the pod around, keeping the back of the device held closely against his chest, allowing her to read the text message on the screen. She wondered for a brief moment why he had not simply just sent its contents to her own pod, or flapped his trap to relay the message, but once it clicked, she began to understand._

_**I'm not who you think I am or who I appear to be. NJF sent me.**_

_Maya frowned and looked up at Kevin again, realizing then that the way he had repositioned his body was done deliberately so that the hidden security camera in the room, if it was located where she suspected it to be, would not be able to see the screen. She thought hard about the initials NJF, trying to remember if she knew anyone with those letters in their name. Thankfully for her and for Kevin, it did not take her long to come up with an answer for it: Nicholas Joseph Fury. _

"_He sent you here," Maya whispered, all her efforts directed at keeping a straight face. Kevin nodded in response, flipped the pod around once more, typed in a new message, and then showed it to her._

_**I'm here to help you with our mutual problem. Both of them.**_

_The brunette was further confused by this and became very tempted to simply scream at the man to stop speaking in code. Was Kevin informing her of his plans to betray Doom? Or had he always been a mole? The first text had said that he was not who she thought he was, but for the life of her, she could not immediately discern what this had meant._

_When Kevin did not instantly offer an explanation, the botanist rolled her eyes at her shitty draw of the cards._

"_So, who are you, then?" _

_Kevin typed a new message and flipped the pod._

_**The only other person to have ever broken up with your ex-boyfriend. He doesn't like me anymore because I threw away his spice.**_

_Maya was now beyond confused. The woman had had several boyfriends in the last six years, did Kevin really expect her to just sit here and recount her failed relationships to him? The nerve of the man! Nevertheless, despite herself and against her better judgement, Maya Hansen did just that. _

_The most recent and most significant one had been Tony Stark, of course. Was Kowalowski talking about the genius billionaire? What did he mean by having __**broken up**__ with him? Was he referring to his attending the Tomorrow Academy with Tony? Or was he admitting to being gay? But Tony was definitely not gay. It just did not make sense. And what did throwing away spice have to do with anything?_

_She tilted her head and held her hands out in a gesture that indicated she had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but Kevin continued to firmly stare at her and shook the pod a little. Maya reread the message and thought harder about it. Undoubtedly, Kevin was trying to be discreet about their conversation and wanted to continue speaking in code._

"_Are you referring to Tony," Maya asked in a whisper, needing more information to understand the concealed message. Kevin still did not respond, but he shook the pod a second time. The scientist took the gesture to mean: Yes, I __**am**__ talking about Tony Stark. Whoever __**Kevin**__ was, he had once broken up with Tony and had __**thrown away his spice**__, whatever the fuck that meant. As such, Kevin was no longer in Tony's favor. But other than herself and Pepper, the only person who had ever broken up with Tony Stark was…_

_Her eyes went wide as a possible answer came to her, and it was then cemented at the realization of the significance of the word: __**spice**__. The most well-known spice was pepper. _

_Maya gasped and looked Kevin in the eye as a smirk appeared on __**his**__ face._

"_You're – you're __**her**__?" _

_Kevin nodded once to the question that was barely kept as a whisper. Maya looked down at her feet, her eyes moving from side to side as she thought about this development. She then looked back up to the man who was not a man, unsure of what to say.  
"How long have you been here?"_

_To this, the false man began typing again, and then showed her the message._

_**Since the meeting where Harchov died.**_

_Maya's eyes went wide again. It had been almost a month since Doom had called together everyone involved with the bounty – everyone who was left, that was. Just before that meeting, Anton Harchov had been told by Doom that he had contributed nothing to the cause other than providing the Crimson Dynamo armor that had just recently been used by the Black Knight in an attack on Rescue. Harchov had mouthed off to Doom about his own lack of having provided anything useful, and had met a swift, yet very brutal and messy end. Maya and Killian had been summoned by __**Kevin Kowalowski**__ to attend the meeting after that had happened, and had seen Harchov's still-smoldering remains on the floor of the room. Now, weeks later, Maya finally knew that it had not been Kevin who had summoned them, after all._

"_OK," she said after gulping. "What do you need from me?"_

_Whitney Stane smiled back at the girl, already fancying her initiative._

xxxXXXxxx

He barely had enough time to raise his arms, while still lying flat on his back and on the ground, to activate his shield. Sweat dripped down his contorted face in the pain and effort it was taking him to keep up the only protection separating him from the Doombots' vicious attacks. His EMP/Sonic Blast combo wave had had the expected results on the first round of robots. But now that many more had shown up out of thin air, he doubted that using the rest of his armor's energy to fight rather than defend made much sense.

Then again, staying behind and believing that he could take on a world of Doombots all by himself was something else that should have not made much sense to him, either.

_"Power at 35%."_

"Dammit!"

Tony slowly stood up from the ground, his shield starting to flicker away. Under normal circumstances, and by design, the shield of his armor should have been able to stay on without a constant need to fuel its power. However, the energy blasts being released by the army of Doombots flying above him were testing the limits of his force field. If he let go now – if he pulled back, even if just an inch – the mounting attack that the shield was currently barely being able to keep at bay would rain upon him, putting him through unbearable pain he did not wish to experience at all.

_"Power at 27%."_

"Shut up!"

The suit's battery being drained was something that not only had he accounted for, but something for which he had also planned, as well. However, his spare battery was currently being held inside one of the _Earth Movers_ – at least five miles away from him. The distance itself would have not been a problem in and of itself, seeing as he had expected to be flying towards Castle Doom by now. What he had not expected to take place, though, was being surrounded by robots once more after his massive counterattack.

_"Power at 12%."_

"I said: shut up!"

_ "Mute command cannot be executed."_

"What? Why?"

_"Armor protocols have been altered to suspend the mute function in case of life and death circumstances. The current situation applies."_

"WHAT?! Why have the protocols been altered?"

_ "The new protocol was established to force User: Iron Man to remain aware of perilous conditions and act to prevent or avoid them."_

"It, _what_?" Tony narrowed his eyes. "Who the fuck wrote that protocol?"

_"User: Rescue."_

"Ugh! Come on, Pep!"

Leave it to his wife to watch over him, even when not around. Leave it to her to try to protect him from beyond.

Then again, she was not wide of the mark for doing so. His son was still waiting for him. His mission was nowhere near done.

"I have to get out of here."

Iron Man's boot flight stabilizers began heating up, slowly charging up to try to stage a quick getaway. He knew that the robots would simply follow him towards the castle, but given the fact that the rest of the team was there – along with his spare power source for the suit – he had to run the risk of dragging behind the army of Doom's look-alikes that he had been originally trying to stop from hurting his friends. In either case, the real battle was waiting for him in Castle Doom. This was nothing but a minor interference.

_"Power at 5%. User intervention required."_

"You think?" the inventor's snarky retort was followed by his feet leaving the ground, if only just briefly.

_"Power at 3%. User intervention required. Unstable power diversion,"_ the AI informed him of what he already knew. He had to choose between using the shield and taking flight – the battery would no longer be able to support the use of both.

_"Power at 2%. User inter–"_

"I KNOW!"

Iron Man's feet were roughly returned to the ground; the weight of the energy blasts above him was simply too much. His entire body was being pushed down; his armored boots were now a foot into the soil. He could not help but looking away from the increasing bright light the collision of the laser grenades and the weakening force field created, even if that reduced his chances of seeing his enemy's next move. He just _had_ to look away from it all – from what threatened to burn him alive.

_"Power at 1%. User–"_

"No! I can't… _AAAHHHH_!"

xxxXXXxxx

_ Tonight was the night. _

_ Maya Hansen continued to check and recheck everything; everything she had in her pack, everything set up on her computer, everything written out on the schedule that she had left for Killian to follow while she was away. Said schedule related mostly to the care of James Howard Stark while in her absence, but it was set only for a few days. That was how long she was expected to be gone while she checked in with Nick Fury, making one final analysis of where S.H.I.E.L.D. stood before reporting back to Doctor Doom that everything was clear for his campaign to begin._

_ However, unknown to Doom and Killian, Maya was going to be gone for much longer than a few days. If all went well, the next time she entered this castle, it would be in the name of stopping its owner and her stepfather, once and for all._

_ Maya could not stop herself from looking into her pack again, making sure that the syringes were there. Most of them were for Fury, and would be administered by her to make sure the general was able to last long enough to complete the mission that was to come. Two other syringes, however, contained a very different substance, and they were not going to be used until the very end. Tony's end._

_ Maya did not want to think about that right now, so she also checked the small, portable drive she was taking with her that contained the most recent pictures of James, which she had just taken a few days ago. They were going to be used as incentive for Tony and Pepper to believe what they were going to be told and to ensure their cooperation. But more than that, Maya believed that the two had an absolute right to see proof that their son was alive and well, and that she had seen to it that he had been well cared for. _

_ It was only partially true, of course. Doom and Killian had treated the baby boy like shit numerous times, but for the most part, she had been able to keep him comfortable, well fed, and had done her best to be his friend while he was held captive here. For having been the one to take him from his parents by making it appear that he had died, she had absolutely owed it to the pair, just as she owed it to them to bring something that allowed them to see him now; alive and happy._

_ She checked her watch again, knowing that she was going to have company at any moment now. The time to leave was coming, and she had a big job ahead of her. Fury and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. were waiting for her on Muir Island, where Tony Stark and Pepper Potts were currently being held in secret. Maya had known that the airplane explosion that had swept the world's news last month had been a fake, engineered by Fury to get the duo off of Doom's radar while plans were made to stop him. _

_ What worried her, however, was that Doom did not appear to be as happy as she thought he would be, or confused as to who had finally fulfilled his bounty on the two. It made her wonder if he had bought it at all, or if he was simply relaxed that they were now out of his way. It was unnerving, that was for certain. _

_ There was a soft knock at her door, and she turned to see the form of Kevin Kowalowski enter the room, closing the door behind him and smiling at her. Knowing the part she needed to play, Maya smiled back, stood up from her chair, and went to him. She threw her arms around his neck before the two leaned in and kissed._

_ Of course, __**Kevin**__ was actually Whitney Stane in disguise, and neither woman really enjoyed this, both having completely heterosexual orientations. However, for the sake of throwing off anyone observing them from the security cameras in either of their quarters, it had been decided after their meeting last year that, as Kevin's visits to Maya's room became common and vice versa, it needed to appear as if some sort of relationship had been developing between the two as an explanation, should either of them ever be questioned of why they were meeting so often. _

_ Whitney had been trained personally by Natasha Romanoff in the art of spying, and she knew that it sometimes involved getting physical with someone, in order to sell a lie. That training allowed her to do this with ease, as she knew that it was fake on both her part and Maya's. Women were typically able to be more comfortable with such a situation than men, anyway, so they were able to get through it graciously enough. In any event, Maya knew that she was actually just kissing the hard light hologram that surrounded Whitney, rather than her actual lips, and that made it easier for her._

_ Once they separated and had leaned in to rest their chins on each other's shoulders, Maya whispered to the blonde-in-disguise. _

_ "Is everything ready?"_

_ "Yes," Whitney responded with a nod. _

_ She had been charged with taking Maya to Muir Island, and making sure she, her equipment, and her information, all made it in one piece. Tony and Pepper were currently in the Muir Island medical center in states of coma; Tony from the manipulation of his partially reactivated Extremis, courtesy of Maya's information to S.H.I.E.L.D. the year before; Pepper from having been administered a slowly accelerating compound delivered to her by Dr. Ross when she had gone to the hospital after the attack she had sustained in the Stark Solutions penthouse. _

_ The doctor had been forced to cooperate with the operation under the pretense that his wife was in danger, and he had played along well enough at the time. Pepper had started to approach a death-like state at a slow pace that had taken weeks. According to Maya, Pepper had a strain of Extremis in her that had been there all her life and had been slowly waking up over the last few years. In fact, it had been the blonde's own actions, when she had held Pepper captive and had tortured her in the submarine, that had started the process of activating it. _

_ At this point, Pepper had finally reached a state of near-death just before Whitney, Arthur Parks, and Gene Khan had hijacked and destroyed their plane. The ginger had subsequently had the compound removed from her system, and she, like Tony, was now simply waiting to be woken back up, with her Extremis fully turned on. Maya was the only one who could properly awaken the two with this desired effect, and Whitney had to make sure she got her there to do it._

_ "Get your things, and then let's get out of here," she said to Maya, who nodded, pulled away from her, and then walked back over to her desk to grab her pack and shut down her computer. _

_ She, as Kevin, had volunteered to take Maya to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, where Doom believed their destination was. She had been in the madman's presence a few times, and he genuinely frightened her. She now better understood why her father had been so afraid of the dictator when he had visited Stark International to acquire the Iron Man armor designs. He was even more frightening now, as just last week, Aldrich Killian had administered a strain of Extremis that had been developed to heal Doom from the damage Yogthulu had inflicted, and it had worked. Now back to his full strength, Doom was gearing up for a massive offensive against the whole world. Time was of the essence, and while Doom currently rested, she and Maya would take their leave to go join the rest of the gathering resistance. _

_ "I take it everyone is ready for our visit," Maya's question brought her out of her thoughts, and she nodded. _

_ "They're waiting for our report," she said, playing along with the act that they were talking about their report to S.H.I.E.L.D. about the completion of the bounty. Her friend nodded to her response and then completed her task of turning off her system and gathering her last items._

_ Her friend: because, as hard as it was to believe, Whitney Stane and Maya Hansen had become friends, of a sort, during their time here. Sure, it could have been explained as simply as the two of them being the only ones here who were secretly working to stop the plans for world domination taking place behind the castle's doors. It could also have been chalked up to the two of them having loved and been rejected by Tony Stark, in favor of Pepper Potts. _

_ But in the end, for Whitney, it had mainly been that she had never truly had any friends. Tony had been her friend, sure, but for most of that time it had mainly been because their fathers had been friends, and so the two were often left in each other's company while their fathers had discussed business matters. Tony had partially begun to see her as a real friend during the time that they had attended the Tomorrow Academy, but that had mostly been because he had felt sorry for her. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, and Gene Khan to a degree, had all tried to be friendly with her at one point or another, but they had simply been peons to her, people who hung around Tony like orbiting moons, and so came with the territory of being around him. Finally, although she definitely had formed a bond with Natasha and Clint, they were more like older siblings to her, parents even; the mother and father she had dreamed of having but never did._

_ For Maya, the fact that she had lost her friendships with Tony and Pepper, lost her mother, lost the father figure she had idolize for half her life, and had been complicit in a conspiracy to destroy the two people who had treated her kindly and respected her for who she was, even when she had kept them apart, had left her feeling more guilty and alone than she had ever been in her life. Once she had learned who Whitney was and what she was doing here, she knew that the other girl would completely understand those feelings. From there, the two had developed an unspoken respect for one another and for the burden they both carried, as they went about their respective missions to help Tony and Pepper, and stop Killian and Doom._

_ Even so, Maya had not been certain that she could trust the double agent for many months after their first meeting. What had finally convinced her had been James's reaction to the secret blonde. It had been a couple of weeks after James had been brought here; Maya had him in her lab and was nursing his injuries from the latest batch of tests that Killian had performed on him. More like surgeries, when one really thought about it. Whitney had walked in, disguised as Kevin as usual, wanting to get an update on the status of things that she could take back to Nick Fury for her own report. Kevin, unlike Maya, could come and go as he pleased since AIM's base was located elsewhere, and he brought regular updates on the development of the new Mainframe to Doom periodically._

_ Whitney had stood in the presence of James Howard Stark for the first time and had looked him over carefully. She kept a hold on her reflex reaction that many young women experience when near a baby; she had wanted to smile and gush at how cute he was, and she took note of his similarity to both of his parents, particularly his brownish-red hair, which looked just the slightest bit blond in the right light. Not to mention his startling, electric blue eyes; his father's eyes, full stop. _

_ Maya had watched the two closely, noting how James was staring intently at the stranger in front of him. Knowing that the baby could see things others could not, she wondered if he was seeing through the illusion and looking at Whitney as she truly was. Whitney noticed how the boy was looking at her and she became a bit unnerved as well, her expression remaining blank. After a few moments, which seemed to crawl into hours, James's face slowly changed into a warm smile, his eyes sparkling just the slightest bit as he looked up at the woman disguised as a man._

_ Both women were slightly taken aback at the expression of kindness, trust, and understanding that the baby boy was giving the secret agent. Maya knew that James could somehow see the connection the blonde had with his parents, as well as her intentions and motivations. Whitney felt comforted by James's face; she did not know if he could tell what she had done to his parents in the past, especially his mother, but his gaze made her feel as if he did not judge her for it if he did know. He seemed to be telling her with his soulful blue eyes that everything was alright._

_ That had been the deciding factor for Maya. She knew that no ill-intent could be hidden from James, even if he could not understand what he was seeing. And if he trusted Whitney Stane, then she knew that she could as well._

_ Finished with their own personal reminiscences of how it had all come to this, both women gave each other a look that said they were ready to get the hell out of here, right now. Continuing to put up the act, Whitney held her hand out to Maya, who took it tenderly, also playing along for any spying eyes, and the two walked hand-in-hand out of Maya's laboratory. _

_ Both were prepared to make right, either separately or together, what they had done to the man they both loved, and to the woman they had both betrayed, who owned that same man's heart._

xxxXXXxxx

The sounds of explosions much louder than before made Maya Hansen suddenly stop her trek towards her assigned location, her eyes wide at the frightening view she knew everyone could witness taking place from afar. The commotion was once again coming from where they knew Tony had been left behind, which made her heart beat faster than it already was. Her plan was falling apart at the seams. Time was running out. She now finally fathomed how grossly she had underestimated the timeframe required to do what she had come to ensure was done. This was not how it was all supposed to go. This was not how far back she was supposed to be at this point in time. She was not even supposed to be here all by her lonesome self, to start.

"Oh, shit," the brunette looked left and right, just now realizing that she had left herself wide open for an attack. She was not near the main battle currently developing at the front of the castle between the improved army of Doombots guarding the doors and everyone else, but she _was _still circling the castle of the maniac. She knew that he had eyes and ears everywhere, and that practically nothing got past his scrutinizing watch, but she still had to at least _try _to conceal her presence near the back of the building, by hook or by crook.

She took a few steps back, her eyes cautiously staring everywhere until her body hit the large object that had surreptitiously been following her around. With her back still pressed against it, her right palm aimlessly patted said object until she found the scanner she knew had to be somewhere nearby. She slammed her hand onto it with what she knew to be too much force, but she felt no regret for doing that. Who could blame her, really, for being so on edge and fidgety, when she was the only person in the entire army of heroes whose only superpower was being good with a scalpel? She doubted the mechanical replicas of Victor von Doom would flee at the sight of a surgical device, let alone from a helpless woman who could barely keep her hands from shaking in fright.

Maya Hansen was here simply because she had worked with Doctor Doom, had a personal vendetta of her own to fulfill, and because of her vast knowledge of the workings of the Extremis virus. She was definitely not here because she was the _strongest there was_.

That was what the Hulk was for.

The _Earth Mover_'s stealth feature at last became disabled to allow the botanist to turn around in place and begin her hasty climb toward the top of the technological device while inwardly snorting at the fact that, after all that treacherous climbing in the Alps, this ladder felt as if it were nothing more than a kids' playground one, despite how long it was. The fact that these were the miniature versions of the digging machines, reduced to a fourth the size of their original design, also happened to help tremendously.

Even if she was hopping inside of it way before she was supposed to do so, there was no other way to stay protected until her turn to act came around. Despite the fact that the Doombots could probably, eventually, find the location of the hidden digging device, she would undoubtedly be much safer inside. Not to mention, Tony had added some weapons to the excavation invention when he had redesigned it for this war, just in case, he had stated to her while training her how to use the _Earth Mover_, trouble got in their path.

_Always_ _ahead of the curve_, Maya sadly smiled at the thought. That was one of the many reasons why she had been attracted to the young billionaire, in the first place. And it was one of the few reasons why she was still very much in love with the blue-eyed man despite knowing it was never meant to be between them.

She sighed in relief when she reached the hatch atop the _Earth Mover _without being spotted, thus she had to do now was twist it open, pull it up, jump inside, take a seat, and then set the device into lockdown mode. She had practiced this task over and over again, back at Muir Island inside the VTR, just to make sure that she had at least one sure way to stay out of sight when the appropriate time came around. She could have probably done this with her eyes closed – or with the _Earth Mover_ still in stealth mode; this was how much she had overkilled the practice of the task. Yet, in none of the practice runs she had performed before, no matter how tricky the system had made them out to be, had she experienced anything like what she was about to face right now.

As soon as she pulled open the hatch, she was thrown away from the device and back onto the ground by something swiftly exiting the _Earth Mover_, practically at the speed of sound. The air was expelled from her lungs the moment she – and the back of her head – hit the hard ground, preventing her from instantly being able to make sense of what was unfolding around her. Her eyes were blurry yet seeing dark spots. Her lungs burned from the lack of oxygen within them, and her throat refused to stop the coughing fit that was rattling her frail form.

She laid on her right side, rubbed her neck and the base of her head with her left hand, and _almost_ did not recognize the distinct sounds blaring from the _Earth Mover_ nearby.

But in the end, she did.

She _absolutely_ did.

And she would have smiled at the revelation that suddenly befell her. She would have even laughed. She would have probably cheered loudly as well. But all her body allowed her to do right now was groan, moan, and curse aloud in pain.

The light at the end of the tunnel was starting to come into view, but she still had to somehow manage to get her ass inside the digging device.

xxxXXXxxx

_It had been just over two years since the last time he had personally kept close tabs on the irritating couple. For a time, it had appeared that the falling out that had taken place between them would allow his vengeance to come sooner than he had hoped. It had been clear, based on the Hansen girl's reports, that the two had not gotten over each other, but that their pride had kept them apart, inflicting emotional pain on one another over and over, while still yearning to be together. _

_If he had had the strength to attack the girl in a way that would have achieved his goal of making Stark suffer, he most certainly would have. The boy would have had even more to regret, as he would have died believing that Pepper Potts hated him; that she had died believing that he hated her; and also lamenting his ruined chances with her before feeling a cold hand crush the life from his heart, the girl's head held up in front of him as the last thing he ever saw in his pitiful life._

_Alas, Doom had not been in a position to take such action, and no one had made any real attempts to collect his bounty on them during that time. As such, the two had now reconciled. They were together once again and seemed to be happy, in spite of Potts being pregnant with another man's child. Their soap opera-like lives were exhausting to Doom, but not as exhausting as knowing he was not yet strong enough to exact his revenge on Stark._

_He was actually watching them intently now, concealed behind his trusty cloaking tech, as the two enjoyed a day together at the beach. Or, more accurately, while __**the girl**__ enjoyed the day at the beach, since the hot flashes that accompanied her current stage of pregnancy prevented her from feeling the cold of December's winter. Stark, on the other hand, was buried under layers of clothing. And he was clearly keeping up the __**pretense**__ of enjoying the time out with his girlfriend, at the expense of his own life by hypothermia, or at the very least, the loss of a few extremities to frostbite._

_After a while, and after some mindless chatter that Doom did not really bother to focus on while he spied on the actions of the two, Potts finally seemed to pick up on Stark's palpable discomfort._

"_Let's go home," she finally said and smiled. "I think I've had enough for the day."_

"_Sure? We-we've only been h-he-here two hours," Stark stuttered out, but the girl merely smiled, removed her beach hat, and then kissed him._

"_I'm sure," she said with finality. "Let's go back to where it's warm and cuddle on the couch. Does that sound good?" _

"_Sounds like a plan to me."_

"_Good," she replied._

_Without moving an inch, Doom watched as Stark led the woman away from the beach and to their car. The redhead then suddenly looked back over her shoulder as they walked away and, for a brief moment, Doom wondered if he had finally been spotted, seeing as she had looked directly towards where he was standing. However, based on the serene expression on her face, she was simply looking __**through**__ him and at the ocean beyond, before returning her attention to the genius in front of her._

"_Thank you for bringing me here, Tony. I really appreciate it."_

"_Anytime, Pep," he said without missing a beat and squeezed her hand. "You're my girl, right?"_

"_Yup," she nodded. "And you're my boy."_

_Doom felt like puking in his helmet, the sweet behavior between the two disgusted him so. They were so caught up in each other as they headed back to their car, that he wondered if they would even notice him standing here if he was visible, a large neon sign above his head, pointing down at him. On an irritated whim, Doom threw all the caution which he had lived under for the last two and a half years to the wind and turned off his cloaking device. He stood on the beach, his back to the ocean, and openly faced the departing couple. If they turned around and looked back now, they would clearly see him standing there, in all his glory, and his secrecy would instantly be blown._

_Nevertheless, the two were too busy holding onto one another to even pay attention to their most basic instincts, which should have alerted them to a predator lurking nearby. He was now hidden from them only by their own feelings, rather than by his advanced cloaking device._

_**Soon,**__ the mad doctor thought with mounting disdain as he reactivated the stealth mode of his suit. __**Soon, your time will come.**_

xxxXXXxxx

_"… Fine…"_

The sounds of battle near him were unmistakable, even somewhat inviting, but he could not force his eyes to open up to witness what was going on. His body felt like it weighed a ton; and not because his armor was somewhat heavy when not powered up – the anti-gravity tech that he had been using on his suit for quite some time prevented that from being the absolute case. The inability to move at his will was taking place, however, mostly due to the fact that he could feel every muscle in his body burn in ache, as if he had been showered with thousands of anvils, all at once.

_"Sure…" _

_ "… Out…"_

He felt his eyelids twitch, but his electric blue orbs still remained closed. His fingers also tried to move, but he could hardly find it in himself the will to breathe. He swallowed hard, weakly cleared his throat, and then felt the unexpected yet unique sensation that came from the armor coming back to life.

_"Power at 30%. Scanning user vitals."_

The humming of the suit was like an encouraging lullaby for him – one meant for energizing his spirit rather than one to invite feelings of lethargy. The fans inside the armor turned on and they instantly cooled his skin. The HUB display slowly flickered to full use and allowed for his viewing range to expand. And once he was finally able to partly open up his eyes, the first thing he saw was the face of a Doombot nearby.

_Oh, crap!_

He prepared for said robot to take advantage of his proximity to him, to bank on his weakened state, but the bot never made a single move. Instead, it remained there, static, on the ground near him; not one sign that it was preparing for delivering a final blow. Tony furrowed his brow in confusion, thought back on the last thing he remembered happening, and then realized that he had long ago stopped that particular look-alike in its tracks.

_Oh, yeah_, the genius began moving his head to face the sky. _That one is done._

The question now was: why was _he_ not done, too?

He blinked his eyes back to limited clarity, sluggishly moved his head left and right, and then slowly came to the conclusion that not only had he not perished just now, as he had thought he surely would, but that he was again being protected by another Iron Man tech-made force field; one that evidently was not being projected by him, seeing as he could barely conjure a simple thought.

_Rhodey_, this was the inventor's first thought when he saw a trail of gray fly above him. _Or Happy_, he added after a pause when a flash of white followed the trail of gray. _Or both_, the genius thought with a sigh of both relief and fear when the distinct sound of repulsors being used made its way to his eager ears._ They're here. They… they came back. They… Wait. Son of a bitch! They came back!_

_"User's vitals' scans show no permanent damage was sustained, but immediate hydration is highly recommended."_

"Yeah, sure. Let me get right on that," Tony replied with sarcasm as he forced himself to sit up, intending to immediately tell his friends to leave the premises now. He held the weight of his upper body by resting his hands behind him and on the ground, looked up almost immediately to search for the current locations of the Hulk Buster armor and War Machine, and then heard the sound of repulsors once more. He blinked hard when the sunrays cruelly reminded him that his corneas needed a second to adjust to the drastic change in light, but what his eyes revealed to him once they became focused enough was something that nearly made him drop back onto the ground.

The gray had not been really gray but silver.

And the white was more akin to an almost transparent _off_-white.

With strength that he had been sorely lacking just seconds ago, Iron Man sprung to his feet, pressed his shaking armored palms against the shield, and then gasped in surprise at what he saw.

At_ whom_ he saw.

And his heart both almost stopped beating and almost forced itself out of his chest.

She was not fully covered in her suit yet, but the pieces of it were coming together quite nicely despite the chaos she was facing. She was alternating between using whatever parts of her suit she had on, with her own Extremis-given strength, and was being complemented in whatever shortcomings she faced by a quickly adapting bridge of ice. Whenever she needed to change positions to continue fighting the flying bots – and the handful of parts of the Rescue armor that she had on her person were not enough to do the trick – Iceman was quick to send aid her way while simultaneously taking down Doombots himself.

Their moves were so in sync that it was almost choreographic – more so than they had been when they had practiced together in the VTR. And, more importantly: they were not at all ones expected of people who had plummeted to their supposed deaths from the Alps.

Then again, Tony briefly considered a somber idea with a frown before taking a step back and away from the force field: maybe he was hallucinating again. Maybe Iceman and Rescue were not truly fighting before him. Maybe they were just Doombots in disguise. And maybe he was not being protected by the shield in question; maybe he was being kept there against his will.

"All of those are empty!" Tony heard the redhead scream at Bobby Drake, prompting the man to immediately produce and drop a large block of ice on top of said group of Doombots. She then jumped off the floating piece of ice she had been standing on, was joined by the rest of her suit on her way down, and then landed on her feet with all the grace he knew her to have while in her armored hero form.

"I'm ready again! Guide me, Red!"

No sooner than the words left Iceman's mouth, Rescue began using the Sonic Blaster feature of her suit to knock out Doombots with citizens inside – just as Tony had done himself, moments ago. Every robot she left standing instantly became a target for the X-Man, who quickly yet momentarily reduced the numbers of the army of bots.

Then, in a short window of opportunity that all of them knew would not present itself again, Rescue took to the skies, twirled in the air, and then headed straight to Iron Man's location. The shield went down a second before she reached him, and her armored hand then sturdily grabbed him by the left arm. She lifted him into the air and took him away with her, Iceman wasting no time in following closely behind, more or less surfing along a constantly generating ice-slide, much as Blizzard had once been witnessed doing.

Halfway to their obvious destination, Bobby Drake pulled ahead of them, faced them while still traveling on his bridge of ice towards Castle Doom, and then looked directly at an Iron Man who was still silently deciding whether or not to believe if what he was seeing was at all real.

"Did my job, boss," Bobby smirked even though his voice was rather solemn. "I expect a huge raise after all this."

Before Tony could even consider any type of a response, Iceman playfully winked at the redhead, turned around in place, and then rushed towards where the main battle was already unfolding. Behind her faceplate, Pepper's eyes temporarily filled with tears of happiness and gratitude towards the man that had helped her make it out of the Alps in one piece to come here, sometimes even nearly at the cost of his own life. It had been difficult for the both of them to reach the camp without much in terms of supplies, and then to locate their team once they had arrived in Latveria, but they had made it just in time to keep Tony from losing his life.

They had made it in time to perhaps make sure that her self-sacrificing husband lived to see another day.

Knowing that they had no time to waste, Pepper made both suits activate their stealth mode. As soon as the suits became invisible, she sped up to reach an area just behind the castle, where she knew Maya Hansen would be waiting for them, if everything was still going according to plan. She then dropped them both on the ground, immediately retracted her armor into her backpack, did the same for Tony's, and then grabbed his hand in hers to begin pulling him in the direction of the castle. She pulled gently once, harder twice, and then roughly for a third time, but all of her efforts were in vain; the inventor refused to move an inch, no matter how hard she yanked on him.

"Tony, what's wrong?" the redhead desperately tugged on his arm again, wishing that she suddenly had one of those bursts of Extremis adrenaline to pull him along. "I'm sorry we're late, but we have to–"

His hot, desperate-moving lips crashing onto hers nearly made her topple over.

Two weeks. Two motherfucking, long-ass weeks he had been without her. That was two damn weeks too damn long.

His arms circled her waist, pulling her body flush against his to the point he was almost hugging her twice over. Her neck bent backwards with the force of his kiss. His fingernails urgently dug into her skin, eliciting a light whimper of pain from her. In spite of it all, he refused to let go, hallucination or not, until she forcefully pushed him away from her face by resting her hands on his shoulders. Her fingertips then slid up his neck and brushed against his face, trembling as much as she could feel he was shaking too.

"Are you real?" he whispered, his hot breath caressing her lips. "Are you really here?"

"Yes," she whispered back before placing a quick kiss to his lips, at the same time taking away some of his spiking aura from him to help him calm down. "It's me, Tony. I'm here. I'm alive. I… I've missed you… so much…"

"Pepper," he exhaled her name in a way that reminded her of their many nights together, and she then felt his mouth trailing familiar paths on her shoulder and neck while his arms around her practically broke her bones with how tight he was holding onto her. Nevertheless, she threw her arms around his neck, briefly buried her face into his chest, and then repeatedly kissed his jawline.

"I'm sorry… for worrying you. I… we-we had an accident, and–"

"I know," his lips traveled from her neck to her face. "I know. I know. I'm sorry for putting you in danger. I'm sorry for not thinking of a better way. I'm sorry, Pepper. Please, please, _please_ forgive me."

"Forget about it," she kissed his lips again. "Just, don't think about it, Tony. It's over. It's done. You're here. _We_'re here. We made it. We're alive."

"I love you," he grabbed her face by her sides, his eyes digging into hers. "Dammit, Pep, I love you. So much. I _love _you, Pepper Potts."

The redhead smiled, ran her hands down his face, and then kissed him again, deeper this time, stopping only when the sounds of battle pulled them away from their trance.

"I love you, too, Tony," she pressed her forehead against his. "I love you, _so much_. But–"

"But we have a job to do," he interrupted her, slowly coming down from his Pepper-induced high.

"Yes," she exhaled with regret, immediately missing his warmth when he pulled away from her. "I'm sorry. But we do."

"Then let's get it over with," he gave her a soft smile, his hands now in hers, before he took them to his lips to kiss her knuckles. Even now, years after this tradition of them had started, the simple act still managed to practically floor her in awe. "Let's go get our son back."

After a curt nod from her, and an even broader smile, Tony Stark once more felt ready to take on the entire world, with his redhead by his side.

Nothing could stop him.

_Nothing _would stop him now.

He was certain of that.

xxxXXXxxx

_Doctor Doom was not known as the greatest scientific mind in the world for nothing. It was only a matter of time until he had become successful in modifying AIM's early designs of the cloaking technology to something much more useful than simply being invisible. Those fools really were like droning bees in a hive; too mindless in their work to even consider expanding their way of thinking._

_He had perfected a means to use the phase-shifting process that the cloak already used to fade in and out of the visible world, and had redirected the energy used in that same process to achieve a limited form of teleportation. He could not go from one end of the world to the other – as in, he could not travel from his castle in Latveria to Stark Solutions in New York and back again on a whim, but he could be within visual distance of said skyscraper and teleport in and out of it, avoiding the need to bypass the security measures Tony Stark had set in place around the penthouse located within. _

_He had already used this ability a few times before, having entered the Stark residence a short time after the two young heroes had brought home their infant son from the hospital. He had intended to use the ability to study the pair closely, as well as their son, who Killian believed could hold potential for aiding in their Extremis research and develop cures for themselves. On the day that Doom had first entered the Stark penthouse, he had learned almost immediately that there was indeed something __**very**__ different about Stark's son. _

_Doom had not dropped his cloak once throughout his entire first visit to the penthouse; and yet, as soon as he had walked up to the baby's crib and had looked in on him for the first time, the infant had immediately locked eyes onto him and had begun wailing as if all the denizens of Hell were after him. The doctor had actually been startled by this, and had even turned toward the nursery door in expectation of a fight when said door had opened and Pepper Potts had entered the room to tend to her son's cries. Nevertheless, the girl had not seen the intruder in the room at all, confirming his suspicions that the baby possessed the inexplicable ability to see him despite his advanced tech. _

_He had remained in the home all that day, watching the small family go about their business, and the baby had not stopped crying all the time, screaming loudly whenever Doom walked into his view. This had led to great fatigue and irritability in the young couple, even into a heated argument, and Doom had allowed himself to indulge in a minor victory over the fact that his actions had led to such frustration between them. _

_Now, after deciding it to be the best course of action, he had just teleported into the penthouse to scrutinize Pepper Potts more closely. Tony Stark was currently in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody for the death of Rhona Erwin, being experimented on at the behest of Maya Hansen in accordance with Killian's plan to probe the last secrets of Stark's Extremis strain. The baby had been sent away a little while ago; he was going to be looked after by his grandfathers at Stark International headquarters, which meant that the redhead was open to be messed around with. _

_Knowing that a new mother coping with the added stress of an imprisoned fiance was likely to reduce the Potts girl to sleep once she was alone, Doom had waited a while to give her time to fall into deep sleep before entering the premises. It had been his intention to gather his own data on the girl in detail; Killian had been studying her blood samples very closely for a while now, but always gave generic answers when asked why. The man was clearly hiding something, and Doom did not appreciate that. He had the feeling that it was nothing that threatened nor conflicted with his plans, but he would not tolerate secrecy in an endeavor that Killian would not even have been a part of without Doom's invitation in the first place. In addition, from what he had observed so far, the doctor was beginning to suspect that, as with her son, there was indeed something… __**different**__ about the girl._

_He had just teleported inside the living area of the Stark penthouse and had walked to the open door of the master bedroom, expecting to find the girl there alone and asleep, or sobbing perhaps if she were still awake, but he was surprised to find that she was neither crying nor unaccompanied. In actuality, he had just walked into seeing the Mandarin, also known as Gene Khan, placing a kiss to the sleeping girl's forehead before standing straight and brushing some of her hair away from her face. The young man must have used his own teleportation abilities to enter the building after the girl had been left alone, as Doom had not witnessed anyone else entering the penthouse after the lockdown mode had been set in place by her. _

_Suddenly and without warning, Gene Khan visibly tensed up and turned where he stood. He then began looking all around the room, his eyes shining with a golden light that also emanated from the Makluan rings on his fingers as he carefully scanned his surroundings. _

_The movement was repeated a few more times by the Mandarin alter ego, and after realizing that the enhanced senses gifted to him by the alien rings must have allowed him to detect an unusual presence nearby, Doom began backing away from the door and headed back into the living room. _

_To Doom's surprise, the Mandarin was quick to follow after him, still perusing his surroundings while doing so, obviously aware of something lurking nearby, but he evidently lacked any details as to what. Gene Khan was clearly shaken by the sensation he could feel creeping up on him; yet, and soon enough, the ruler of Latveria realized that there was not much the Mandarin could do about this fact. If Gene Khan could have seen his presence nearby, he would have already made the conscious effort to attack him, or at the very least, to try to pinpoint his current whereabouts. _

_Nonetheless, and much to Doom's satisfying pleasure, he had not. _

_The doctor was happy to come to the realization that the cloaking technology enhancements he had recently applied to the suit were strong enough to shield him from the Mandarin's vision, at least at most levels of the light spectrum, especially since he knew how advanced Makluan technology could be; compared to the typical run-of-the-mill Earth-bound device, that was. Without knowing where to look or __**how**__ to look, it was highly unlikely that he would be spotted by the all-seeing Gene Khan. _

_Then again, extremely improbable did not necessarily mean absolutely impossible. And he was not ready to take that chance. _

_He would just have to come back to investigate Pepper Potts at a later time; a time when Gene Khan was nowhere around. _

_Being cognizant that there was not much else to do at this point in time, Doom finally teleported out of the building, leaving the Mandarin to his thoughts, knowing for a fact now that he too would suffer guilt over the girl's death when the time came. Doom had not forgotten the Mandarin's part in his ensnarement by Yogthulu, and the part-Makluan would surely feel his wrath when the time was right._

_What was it about this redheaded young woman that made two grown men bend to her every whim? What was it about her that set those two men on edge when she was in danger? _

_She was not even that intelligent, attractive, or special enough to merit such devoted attention from the two powerful men she had at hand. How she had managed to earn the attention of Tony Stark and Gene Khan was beyond him. The two men were surely weak and out of their minds for allowing a woman to have so much influence on their actions and thoughts._

_Then again, silently and much to his chagrin, Victor von Doom admitted that he was not one to talk._

xxxXXXxxx

The inside of Castle Doom was no better than the unwelcoming outside, at least aesthetically speaking. It actually felt as if the front door that Hulk had just torn apart for them had been a time machine, and their destination had been none other than England during the Middle Ages. There was very little light inside. Strange and unnerving art covered the walls, and as Nightcrawler had almost realized when first stepping inside, deadly traps were hidden all over the place. It was as if they had stepped inside an odd-looking fun house at an old, abandoned carnival in a deserted town – only to find that there was nothing fun about it at all.

As soon as they had set foot inside the entrance hall of the castle, all hell had broken loose, forcing the heroes to jump into action at the drop of a hat.

"Does Doom use a magic hat to make his bots?! How are there so many of them?!" Happy Hogan groaned inside the Hulk Buster armor as he threw yet another couple of robots out the large windows in the main hall, the weight of the soldiers shattering the thick glass with no problem at all.

"I take it that he had some downtime, you know, between his all-day sulking on his plans to kill us and all," Rhodey replied, both of the machine guns on his shoulders aiming towards the army of robots that were trying to approach him.

"Man needs a hobby," Gambit twirled his retractable staff in his hands before he used it in conjunction with a large set of explosive cards to take down the five bots surrounding him.

"Taking over the world can be considered a hobby," Jarvis retorted as he removed a robot's helmet to make sure that there was no innocent civilian inside before he strapped a bomb onto it and then kicked the robot away from his standing location.

"So is getting laid," Iron Man replied, earning him a loud groan and a face-palm from Rescue.

"Really? _That's_ what you're thinking about right now?" Rescue's annoyed voice was followed by her punching a robot in the face without even bothering to look at it.

"You two talk too much," Fury interjected before he reloaded his enhanced handgun and used it to take down another Doombot.

"We need to play the part," Iron Man lightly shrugged, his metal feet and fists stopping incoming robots in their tracks as if they were nothing but toys. This suit of armor sure beat using his typical weapon of choice.

"Then _you_ need to talk _a lot_ more than that, Rescue," War Machine added.

The member of the Air Force followed his keen observation by taking flight to direct his hand repulsors and machine guns towards the dozen or so robots that he had just confirmed were not being piloted from within. His suit's systems procured aim towards his target. He confirmed that the impact would hit the mark. But he was then stopped in his tracks when a block of ice hit the bunch as if they were mere bowling pins being hit by a giant, fast-rolling, square-shaped ball, which halted only when the bots became metal smears against a nearby wall.

"Nice spare!"

The loud self-praise and the bulldozing-like move caught the attention of everyone within the castle's walls; robots included, and practically brought the fight to a standstill to watch Bobby Drake make the type of entrance he was known to favor in situations like these. The block of ice then exploded into a thousand pieces, and some of the pieces were purposefully aimed towards the second set of doors that the members of the resistance were trying to reach. The entrance hall was only the start of their efforts to take over the castle. Their true goal was reaching Doom's throne chambers.

"What?" Iceman shrugged when he felt the eyes of everyone on him, his right hand nonchalantly spearing a neighboring robot before haphazardly throwing it in the opposite direction it had come from, almost in a comical way. "Never seen an ice cube smash robots before? Where do you all live? Under a rock?"

"Sometimes, it's a rock. Sometimes, just under a big pile of snow," Nightcrawler replied, his face showing how glad he was to see his friend and comrade return to the group, seemingly intact.

"You alright?" Scott asked, likewise happy to see his teammate appearing to be alive and well, but also keenly aware that verbal confirmation of welfare was all there was time to do at the time.

"Didn't the incessant talking at poor times already answer that?" Mandarin hissed, a handful of Doombots instantly hitting the ground at his command.

"I missed you too, Khan," Iceman rolled his eyes. "But I don't think that Red missed you _that _much. She's too busy catching up with her man."

"They're here?" Fury narrowed his eyes after sparing Chameleon a knowing look.

"And in position, as far as I know," Bobby replied before nonchalantly decapitating an empty robot.

"Then what are we waiting for? Call on the second wave of help!" Hill ordered the psychic of the group.

"On it."

Jean placed her hands on her temples while Cyclops, Chameleon and Gambit protected her as she concentrated on the difficult task at hand. She was aware that the Professor had Cerebro to help him find her location and hear her message, but _she_ still had to stretch her telepathic muscles to connect with the man, leaving her highly vulnerable while she completed the job.

"It's about time, too," Rogue smiled, her eyes briefly locking with Iceman's to make sure that he was as fine as he claimed himself to be.

"Should I get the door, then?" Jarvis cocked his gun, his chin pointing towards the heavily guarded gate that, thanks to Maya's detailed blueprint of the structure, they knew led to the next level of the castle.

"Allow me," Mandarin replied, lifted his arms towards the doorway, and smiled inside his helmet. "Been wanting to do this for a _very_ long time."

"Oh, it's on now!" Happy pumped his fists in the air, for the first time looking forward to fronting their real enemy, at last.

"Ready to face this asshole, Hulk?" War Machine enquired, his eyes turned into slits behind his faceplate.

"Hulk HATE waiting!"

"I'll take that as a: yes," Living Laser's glowing form said from his position in the air.

"I empathize with the sentiment," Black Panther's claws grew even longer than they had already been moments ago.

"You speak for us all," the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. added after a short pause, pointed his gun at the door, and then gave the order for everyone to _go_.

xxxXXXxxx

_Tony Stark at last arrived to the room that functioned as his personal laboratory in the Stark Solutions penthouse, completely unaware that he was being keenly observed by Doctor Doom from the hallway outside of the room; the place where he had been waiting for him to finally come collect his son. The doctor had moved baby James Stark out of his bedroom a few minutes prior, and he had deposited him in his father's lab, giving Stark a good scare and giving himself time to observe and think. _

_Victor von Doom was now furious and barely keeping it together, which was a stark contrast to how delighted he had been at first, when he had come to learn that the child had begun saying his name, or at least attempting to and succeeding with a close equivalent. Doom had introduced himself by name to the baby three months ago, when he had become aware that the boy was at an age where he would begin to associate people and objects by name. Until a few days ago, all he had been able to speak were crude approximations of his parents' names. Then, James had begun to say __**boom**__ when he was within the child's vicinity, letting the madman know that he identified him as well._

_However, a short while ago, the small boy's actions had worsened the doctor's already foul mood. He had become positive that Killian was keeping something very important from him about the boy and his mother, and while it made no difference to his plans, he was going to see for himself just what potential the two held. This night, just moments ago, James Howard Stark had broken open his crib latch with his bare hands, eliminating any doubt Doom had had that the boy not only carried Extremis as had been suspected all along, but that it was of a far greater quality than Killian had assured him it could be._

_Having noticed the baby's desire to impress his father, Doom had relocated the child to his current spot in order to heighten Tony Stark's level of panic to a point where it would be plain on his face and in his voice, all with the simple goal of giving the baby enough incentive to perform some abnormal feat in the hopes of appeasing his father. If the boy could do something else other than seeing through his cloaking device and jailbreaking out of his crib, this would be the perfect time for the youngster to prove himself before the invisible crowd._

"_Howie, you scared the crap out of me!"_

_The baby had been smiling with pride at his father once he had been found. Although Tony's volume and tone of voice made it clear that he was not in a happy mood, the tyke still continued to look happy as he began the process of crawling towards his father. This caused Tony Stark's rapid breathing to shallow and his own smile to spread across his face, not at all being what Doom had expected to take place._

"_That's it, Howie. You can do it. Come on! Come on!"_

_Damn it all to hell! Instead of forcefully throwing away the remains of the broken latch, breaking it further with his hands, or performing any other major feats that would have been impossible for any other baby, the tiny Stark had opted to simply perform an ordinary move that babies could do that he had simply never done on his own before. This was definitely not what needed to be taking place right now. This was most definitely __**not**__ what Doom had come to see._

_His mood quickly worsening due to the unexpected turn of events, the doctor opted to teleport inside the room, directly in front of the crawling baby, in order to halt his progress while remaining unseen to Tony. If this did not yield the expected results – if this act did not prove to him that the child was worth the trouble of being taken away from his irresponsible parents, then his time here would be wasted tonight._

_And someone, namely Tony Stark, would pay for wasting Victor von Doom's precious time._

"_Come on, Howie! You're almost here. Keep going."_

_Rather than obeying his father's wish, James Howard Stark slowly looked up until he was staring directly at the red eyes glaring at him from behind Doom's faceplate; an action that almost tamed his foul mood. The doctor then heard Stark swallow hard behind him and take a single, cautionary step forward, alerting the metal man that his desperate deed was perhaps starting to shape into what he had wanted it to be in the first place. _

_As Doom continued to stare down at the baby, James lifted his little arms up towards him and wiggled his fingers, indicating that he wanted to be held by him again, giggling loudly as he did so. Doom merely continued to silently stare back at the child, trying his best to express as much anger as he could with his eyes, wondering if the baby would interpret his current mood and react accordingly. He was tired of playing the game of being this child's imaginary friend – it was time for the boy to be pushed into submission and learn the real power of Doom._

"_All spectrum views. Rotate. Five-second intervals."_

_Doom nearly growled in frustration as he remembered that Stark had his little toy with him, one that allowed him to view different modes of the light spectrum that were typically not visible to the naked eye. In response, and to avoid the chance that one of the spectrum Stark would check might give away his presence, Doom teleported out of the lab and back into the living room in the blink of an eye. _

_He tolerantly waited where he now was; knowing by his habits that Stark would bring his son in here after calming down and realizing that he could not place him back into a crib that had been broken open. Doom took the time to look around the room, which was now a complete mess, what with Tony having flipped over most of the furniture in his panicked search for his son throughout the home. The young man's poor reactions and mind-numbing responses to emergencies were sickening to the doctor – how this kid had managed to keep him on his toes was beyond him. It had to have been pure luck, not skill, that had allowed the Stark Family to remain as intact as they had been all this time. _

_They were both approaching now; he could hear Stark talking to the boy, and he could even hear the child responding back a few times with the rough versions of all the names he could currently speak. It was just a matter of time now – their luck would eventually run out._

_And tonight seemed like a good time for that to come to pass._

_As they entered the room, Tony turned off the lockdown protocol, causing the security shutters around the doors and windows to retract, revealing that the clouds that had been building outside had finally released the storm they had been holding within. The rain and lightning fitted with how Doom felt in his soul right now – and they also foresaw how he planned to leave the two unsuspecting victims he had in his eye._

_A bright flash and a rumble from outside preceded all of the lights in the place blinking out. The storm, which had started in the relatively short time that Stark had had the penthouse in lockdown, was getting down to business quickly and had already killed the power, much to Doom's elated surprise._

"_Crud," Tony whispered when the backup generator did not immediately kick in. _

_The inventor then reactivated the device he called the ROI, most likely intending to use its night vision feature to see his way around, but he never got that far. As a second bolt of lightning struck near the building, illuminating the whole room through the window for an instant, Tony Stark gasped and spun around in place to stare at the exact spot where Doom was now standing. The doctor was not quite sure what had just happened, but it was likely that whatever spectrum the device had been cycling through had allowed Stark to see his reflection in the balcony window he had been facing at the moment of the lighting strike._

_Doom stayed where he was as Tony continued to stare in his direction, cycling through vision settings, trying to see more clearly what he had just seen reflected behind him. He needed to know if the inventor's gadget could detect him through his cloak, or if it had been a random combination of that specific level of light and his reflection in the glass. If so, he could avoid being seen again, but if he could be seen…_

_In an instant, Stark's face changed to one of shocked surprise, and Doom immediately knew he had been spotted once more. Before Tony could confirm what he was seeing or what spectrum he was seeing it in, Doom quickly swiped his hand through the air, using his armor's ability to manipulate the effect of gravity on an object to fling the ROI from Tony's face without approaching him, shattering the device upon the floor._

_Stark immediately held his son as close to his body as he could, and held out his right hand in the direction of his lab. Summoning a gauntlet from his own armor onto his hand, Stark then aimed it back in the direction Doom had been standing, but which he had now moved away from._

"_Who are you? Show yourself! How did you get in here?"_

_The panic in the inventor's voice was high, even more so than it had been minutes ago while searching for his son's whereabouts. Figuring now was as good a time as any to take his leave, Doom activated the teleporter, hearing Tony shout aloud one more time in the second before he vanished, rage now mingled with terror in his voice._

"_SHOW YOURSELF!"_

_But there was no longer anyone there to threaten with his fiery words._

xxxXXXxxx

Professor Xavier opened his eyes, lifted his head, and then looked over his shoulder to an awaiting Doctor Betty Ross and Dr. Ross to share a smile with them. The young woman clasped her hands against her chest, gasped inwardly, and then asked the one question she had been dying to ask ever since the last team had left the compound.

"Was it Jean? Is it time?"

"It appears to be."

"Are you gonna call your friends now?" Dr. Ross asked; his tone of voice as impatient yet as hopeful as his counterpart's appeared to be.

"Yes," the Professor nodded once to the unrelated Rosses, returned his attention to the device on the table before him that allowed his mind to remotely access Cerebro while abroad, and then heard Betty verbalize the question he had already heard forming in her mind.

"Which ones, Professor?"

"Which ones?" Xavier smirked with confidence as he closed his eyes. "_All_ of them."

xxxXXXxxx

"Fifty more feet," Tony read the _Earth Mover's_ ground-penetrating radar numbers aloud before he turned around in place, adjusted the straps of his backpack, and then faced the redhead and the brunette before him, all sporting looks that spoke volumes of how ready they were to end this battle.

"Are you sure there won't be anyone waiting for us up there?" Pepper asked.

"Not with the distraction happening at the top of the building, they're not," Maya replied as she too got ready to exit the _Earth Mover_ as soon as it dug itself out onto the floor of the deepest basement within the castle.

"Let's just hope that Clint and Natasha can use our armors well enough to keep Doom and his bots busy thinking we're up there, even if all we manage to do in that time is finding Howie and barely reach the power core room."

"With the second wave of help on its way, we should have enough time for all that," Pepper added with a smile and then adjusted her backpack for the nth time. She was trying to sound confident for Tony's sake, who she could tell was highly on edge, but the truth was that she was as nervous as he was. Somewhere in this castle, hopefully where Maya expected him to be, their son was patiently waiting for them. If the little boy was still on the premises, and the botanist believed that he was, she and Tony would soon find him in Maya's lab. Finally, after all this time, they could see their son again. And, with any bit of luck, they would find only _him_, and not his _corpse_.

The redhead tightly closed her eyes at the rather morbid thought before leaning closer to the genius. Not a second later, she felt Tony's arm briefly surround her shoulders from the side, shortly before she then felt his lips against her forehead. She returned the gesture by surrounding his waist with her arms and pressing her right ear to his chest, almost relaxing with the sound of the steady beating of his heart.

"Twenty-five feet," Maya said, if just to break the silence that was making her feel uncomfortable while watching the couple tenderly comforting each other without words. In the tiny, cramped space within the _Earth Mover_, there was not much room to use for roaming around – or much to observe other than the computer screens and one another, leaving her with the sad choice of watching the man she loved tending to the woman she could not bring herself to hate.

The brunette's hands fell inside her pockets to feel for the syringe she still carried with her, and she then looked up to read the radar one more time. The digging technology was starting to slow down its trek as they had finally reached the stone and concrete foundation of the basement, which signaled how close they were to their destination. In a matter of seconds, she would be back to the place she had hoped to leave every day she had been in it. In less than a minute or so, she would return to the location where her mother had died; the place where her mother's rotting body still lay, in some unknown cell, being denied the option to be buried according to her family's faith.

All because Aldrich Killian had deceived her and her trusting mother. All because said man had wanted to keep up with appearances while furthering his demented cause. Even now, after all the destruction the ruler of Latveria had caused to countless people around the world, Maya Hansen could not tell who the worst of them was: Aldrich Killian or Victor von Doom. And knowing what was about to take place in just a few moments, she knew that she would never have the opportunity to find out.

"We're here," Tony's statement made the botanist look towards him to see the couple suiting up. In the blink of an eye, Iron Man and Rescue were before her, their armors bringing back memories of simpler times – of times when her biggest worry was how close the inventor and the redhead appeared to be. Worries of whether or not something more than just pure friendship existed between the two friends and roommates. Those times felt as if they had taken place forever ago. So much had changed since then. So much had been lost in that time.

And lost time, Maya Hansen had learned, was something that no one, anywhere, ever got back.

The sudden halt of the _Earth Mover_ and the top latch automatically unlocking itself were their cues to begin climbing out of the machine. The _Earth Mover_ had stopped so that it's top hatch was level with the floor, keeping it from being seen from afar. The second _Earth Mover_ was following suit, its programming sending it several feet away from their location, to do the exact same thing this particular _Mover_ was doing right now: embedding itself at a strategic location beneath the castle to explode with near-nuclear force when the time was right. As much as Tony hated to admit it, he _was _very good at building weapons. And both of these _Earth Movers_ had been specifically designed to blow the entire place to Kingdom Come when the best chance to do so presented itself: if their plan to shut down the power core failed – regardless of who was still inside.

It did not take long for them to hike out of the _Earth Mover_, crawl on the floor for a few feet to move away from the opening the machine had left behind, and then to stand up straight in the dark hall. Iron Man had been the first one to come out of it, and his suit had instantly searched the area for unwanted guests. When he had detected none, Maya Hansen had come out. And then, after making sure the device was on stand-by to explode by inputting the appropriate sequence, Rescue exited the _Earth Mover_ as well.

The three members of the resistance remained silent where they stood, their heads slowly moving left and right to eye both ends of the hall. There was very little light near them – and most of it came from fire lit torches attached to the walls. Whatever was visible did not appear to be very welcoming; and neither was the scent of decay that permeated the air.

After years of being unknowingly haunted by the owner of this palace, and after months of preparing for executing their retribution towards the man that had plotted against them for such a long time, the opportunity to make things even had finally arrived – nonetheless, and much to their dismay, the trio could not make themselves move an inch just yet.

As if sensing that her current hesitation was also present in the two heroes standing before her, the brunette sighed loudly, extended her right arm in the direction of her private lab, bowed slightly, and then spoke words she never thought she would ever say to anyone, anywhere, ever.

"Ladies and gentlemen: Welcome to Castle Doom."


	15. Chapter 14

**Guest Review Responses**

**Thank you for the favorite/follow: **_GinnyandHarry14_, and _LoveTVshows_.

**Iron kid: It keeps on getting better and better so keep up the great work – **Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I sometimes fear that this story has gone on for too long, and that I've taken way too long to update, that people are just not interested anymore.

**Iron kid: Plz update soon because I can't wait to see what happens next – **So sorry! But here it is! A chapter that I know will be worth the wait.

**A/N: **Physical therapy at the doctor's location is over. Now I am doing the rest at home. Feel sooooooo much better!

* * *

**Chapter 14**

_The young woman entered the penthouse alone, which was unexpected, but could prove to be the opportunity he had been waiting for. He remained where he was, standing in front of the balcony doors, as she locked the front door behind her, set the internal lockdown mode that only she and her husband could unlock, and then dropped her purse on the couch in the living room. _

_As she began to walk around the penthouse, going to each room and picking up small items here and there, placing them in their properly designated locations, he followed along after her, slowly drawing closer and closer to her as he observed her actions, but never too close that a sudden change of direction from her could result in a collision between them. On the surface, she appeared to be calm, but the readings of her vital signs that his armor was showing him indicated that she was slightly on edge; anxious, nervous even. He was not certain why, but figured that he would learn as he continued to observe her._

_Upon entering the master bedroom, she stopped and took from her pocket her Stark pod and tapped in a short text, most likely notifying Stark that she made it home safely. The mad doctor rolled his eyes at the thought. After a moment, a soft ping and a smile on her face indicated the inventor's response, followed by the redhead turning the sound off and setting the device on her nightstand. She then stretched her arms above her head with a loud groan._

"_I need a shower," she whispered. It surprised him little that she would not only talk when no one was around, but also whisper, just in case the people who were __**not**__ around happened to overhear her. It made perfect sense of course, in absolutely no way whatsoever._

_As she began walking toward the bathroom, she began to remove her clothing. Doom watched with no interest at all in the fact that she was stripping in front of him. He had seen her naked before while spying on the penthouse residents. The tyrant felt nothing from this – he was beyond such base human reactions. However, he was intrigued at the idea of attempting to scan her while she was showering again. The last time he had attempted to do so, she had somehow seen him, or at least his silhouette. He still did not know how she had done that, but it had only further increased his certainty that the ginger held a great secret that Killian somehow knew about, but was not sharing with him._

_He waited while she examined her bare form in the full-length mirror, paying special attention to the various scars that stood out on her body. They were relatively small, however, and certainly nothing when compared to his own scars – and that was without counting the damage Yogthulu had dealt to his body._

_The girl finally turned toward the shower stall, running her hands over two bracelets, one on each wrist, that she apparently intended to wear while showering. She entered the stall, closed the glass door, and then turned the water on full force at the highest temperature. The room began to fill with steam almost immediately._

_This was where Doom knew he could learn the most about her. She was at her most vulnerable in just this situation, and easier to inspire fear in, which would give him the clearest reading that he could get. On the previous occasion that he had been in here while she showered, he had been attempting to run a specialized scan of her body tissue to see if anything was out of the ordinary. He had just received the first blip of information from that scan when she had somehow noticed him standing outside the stall, speaking to him under the belief that it was her husband in the room with her, and had then opened the door to take a look. He had teleported out of the penthouse the moment she had moved to open the door. _

_He did not know how she had managed to detect his presence, but he was more certain than ever that something was out of the ordinary with her. That was why he was here now; prepared to make a scene while she was distracted in order to frighten her and hopefully get a better reading on her._

_Ultimately, it did not matter. Although his plans for Stark had changed, she was still very much fated to die. After having assembled his own version of The Controller's Mainframe, and learning that Tony Stark's unique Extremis was essential to its function of controlling the minds of the world's population, Doom had changed the terms of his bounty to focus on the inventor's wife and son. After Maya Hansen had brought the child into his custody alive, and Killian had convinced him that the boy's secrets would grant them both the cure they sought for their ailments, he had altered it again to focus the full reward money solely on Pepper Potts._

_But more than this, the continued existence of the ginger bothered him for a more personal reason. Having spied upon and learned about Stark's connection with her for the last several years, his observations had inevitably led him to make comparisons between the spunky redhead and his own dearly departed Valeria. Although the two women did not share a physical resemblance, the behaviors, mannerisms, sharp wit, and strength of spirit that Pepper Potts exhibited was virtually indistinguishable from the doctor's own long lost fiancée. _

_And – it could not be denied – Doom hated her for that; her and Stark. Despite everything they had gone through, these two had been able to return to one another, time and time again, growing stronger and closer together, and living the happy life of young lovers that had been romanticized in the minds of naïve people for centuries. Why should these two get what they wanted and be happy, when he, Victor von Doom, who possessed the greatest mind and greatest power of any human to ever walk this Earth, had lost everything he had cared about?_

_No; he would not tolerate it. He had told Iron Man once that he had known nothing of pain or misery, but that he would make him learn it. In spite of all that had occurred in these last few years, Stark had only learned the first few mere examples of what pain and misery truly were. He was yet to justly comprehend the lesson. But he would, once his precious ginger was finally taken from him forever._

_For now, however, Doom was content with learning whatever mystery the young woman's body was keeping – if Aldrich Killian was willing to run the risk of being found withholding valuable information from the most powerful man on Earth, then researching the subject in person was worth his time. He moved closer to the glass door of the shower stall, just as he had last time. She gave no indication that she was aware of his presence this time, and she continued with the process of washing her body. Waving his hand slightly, Doom used the features of his armor to subtly unlock the stall door, which could normally only be done from the inside. In a moment, he would fling the door open and startle her, and as she screamed and cringed back against the tiled wall of the stall, he would use her heightened stat of fear and panic to–_

_It happened so quickly that, in hindsight, it seemed almost to be a simultaneous occurrence of a sequence of events. In a space of time that realistically took place in less than two full seconds, the showering redhead flicked both of her wrists, which still held the purple and silver bracelets, and several tiles on the back wall of the stall popped open and down, revealing an opening roughly one foot squared in size, to a hidden compartment. Out of this open compartment, an armored gauntlet flew and attached itself to the woman's hand. Using the momentum created by the action, the redhead spun in place and fired the gauntlet's repulsor right through the shower's glass door._

_Doom stumbled back as the blast hit him squarely in his wide chest, his armor protecting him from any actual harm, but the shock and audacity of her sudden action had caught him completely off-guard. He almost missed it as she began shouting at him._

"_Who are you?" she spat with ire as another piece of the Rescue suit surrounded her left foot, giving her half a chance to propel herself into the air. "What do you want? Who sent you here?"_

_She followed the questions with two more blasts that he was barely able to evade. The chest piece of her armor attached itself to her body at that moment, and she immediately used its unibeam to blast him again._

_The explosion caused by this attack set off the alarms and sprinklers in the penthouse, and Doom reeled away from the redhead, who continued to scream and shoot at him, making his way back into the master bedroom. He became aware of security shutters sliding into place over all of the windows as the residence went fully into lockdown mode. Not bothering to open them, Doom slammed himself into the double doors of the bedroom, splintering them in all directions as he attempted to put some distance between himself and Stark's wife, who was somehow able to partially see him and continued to call on pieces of the still-assembling armor in order to hunt him down._

"_Get back here, you son of a bitch!"_

_Her screamed insult made him stop where he was inside the living room, deciding that he had come far enough to have gathered his bearings. He did not run from battle no matter what the circumstance, and his momentary startlement over her attack was not enough to make him teleport away to safety; not after being challenged in such a way. He did not care if his body was not stable enough to engage in combat with a fighter as well-armed and seasoned as his opponent was. He did not care that the risk was not worth the cost. If the little bitch wanted to play like that, then fine, he would play. He was Doctor Victor von Doom, and by the wretched name of Dormammu's defiled mother, she would feel his wrath!_

_Holding his hands out to his side, he activated the gravity manipulation feature of his armor – using its quantum field to give himself telekinesis for all intents and purposes – and lifted all of the furniture in the room. The couch, the recliner, the ottoman, the coffee table, the lamps, everything he grabbed hold of with his power; only to then fling it all through the air at once, directly at the oncoming and now fully suited redhead. Using all of the thrusters her armored suit had, she managed to dodge each object, although barely. _

"_There's nowhere to go!"_

_She was trying to intimidate him with the notion of his being trapped with her, but he was already way ahead of her and her childish tactics. As she had been dodging the furniture, Doom had increased the power going to his cloak, trying to close himself off further from the visible spectrum. Since the young lady clearly was only able to partially detect his presence, he would have the advantage again if he was able to diminish what she could sense. Not knowing how she was able to do this, he would most likely not be able to adjust the settings enough to fade from her detection entirely, but with just enough obscurity covering him, he might have a chance._

_He watched as her head moved side to side, searching for him, and then stood still in the center of the room. He assumed she was trying to focus on sensing where he was, either with the tech of her suit or through some other means unknown to him. It mattered little; she would not need to find him. It was his turn now._

_Moving as quickly and silently as possible, he zoomed up close to her front and punched her in the face as hard as he could. The force propelled her across the room and into the doors leading out to the balcony. The glass and wood of the doors crumbled around her as she slammed into the security shutters on the other side, hard enough to make them visibly ripple with the impact. _

_She pulled away from the destroyed doors and protective outer shielding, leaving a dent comically shaped to match her armored figure in the metal, and set her feet on the ground, shaking her head and letting out an audible groan from the pain such an impact would have left on her back. He gave her no time to recover, however, and zoomed up to her again, throwing another punch at her face._

_She managed to put up her left forearm to block the hit in time, deflecting his fist and arm to the side, instantly bringing her right knee up and impacting with his lower stomach. It was one of the areas where his armor was weakest, although that was not saying much. Still, he felt the impact enough to feel just the slightest bit of queasiness through his incomplete and heavily scarred body, and the sheer force made him stumble slightly back. _

_He allowed her no time to make another move after that, having thoroughly tired of this whole affair. He reached down with his left arm and grabbed her right foot before she could set it back on the ground following the kick. He straightened his slightly bent knees, standing to his imposing height of six feet and seven inches, raising his arm as high as he could to lift the upside-down girl higher still. She began screaming and thrashing around, deploying flares and thrusters, and even going so far as to begin making petty threats of what she was going to do to him once she was free from his grasp. The mad doctor nearly chuckled out loud, he was so genuinely amused by the very thought. _

_Humorous though she was at the moment, Doom decided that he had definitely had enough of this game. He turned her slightly in his hand and brought his own knee up with as much force as he could muster, hammering it firmly into the center of her back. He heard the breath expel from her mouth and she began to gasp. He slammed her back to the ground, and with a little bit of admittedly difficult trickery, used his power to open the faceplate of her armor. The redhead was quite dazed from the impact, and he doubted she would remember that he had opened her helmet, or was even aware of it now. He could probably drop his invisibility cloak right now and she would not know that her attacker knelt before her, never mind who it was._

_Once her face was exposed, he commanded his armor to scan her tissue. The close range, heightened adrenaline, and other hormonal chemicals slushed together in her blood right now, should give him the best possible reading of what was going on inside her._

_After a few moments, the scan was complete, but he did not bother to look at the results. He would do that later. The ginger was showing signs of regaining focus, and an alert from her open helmet indicated that the automated Iron Man armors were closing in and converging on the Stark Solutions headquarters. They would enter the penthouse very shortly and attack anything that registered as a threat to the redhead's safety. As such, he closed her faceplate and teleported out of there, leaving the young woman to take whatever action she would once she regained her senses, and prepared himself to make the journey back to Latveria. _

_He was fairly certain that his time of infiltration was at an end. Now, it was time to begin preparing for the operation he would be launching just a few short months from now. His army of Doombots was now complete; his armaments were almost fully equipped and loaded, and the information he had just obtained from Pepper Potts-Stark would be added to what he had already gained from her husband and son. He would be ready in no time at all._

_The world's new era, the era of Doom, would soon begin._

xxxXXXxxx

"Ladies and gentlemen: Welcome to Castle Doom."

"Cozy," Iron Man ironically spat before he retracted his suit.

"You don't say," Rescue added as she also made her armor return to its backpack form.

"We only have a few minutes," Maya reminded them. "The intruder alarm was set off a long time ago. Let's get what we need from this floor and get the hell out."

"Are you sure Killian is not around here?" Pepper asked, her eyes narrowed, denoting that she was using Extremis to try to locate the man's aura, if nearby. While her abilities were far beyond what a regular human being could ever hope to have, they were not as widespread as Gene Khan's or her son's could amount to be. Even if she wanted to, with every atom in her being, her aura abilities were limited to as far as her eyes could see or as far as her own aura could extend. Gene's and James Stark's aura detecting abilities had, for all practical purposes, no true bounds; walls, doors, or any other type of similar physical _obstructions _meant nothing to either of them.

"Nope," Maya shook her head with confidence. "Knowing him, he's probably already on his way out, the coward."

"We'll get him later, Pepper," Tony placed a hand on Pepper's shoulder.

"Yeah. I know," she sighed in disappointment.

"Well, then. Let's go get your son."

Maya walked past the duo and began her trek towards the location of her lab, knowing that Tony and Pepper would not hesitate to follow her lead once she did. Even if their suits had told them that there was no pending danger lurking in the shadows, the trio still kept their eyes and ears wide open; their steps being exceedingly calculated, on top. It was not long until they finally stopped in front of the closed door they had been searching for. Almost immediately so, Maya ran her badge through the card reader, expecting it to instantly unlock the door for them, but she then frowned when the scanner beeped to reject her keycard.

"Dammit! It's not gonna work," Maya groaned. "Maybe we can–"

_BOOM!_

The botanist's suggestion never saw the day of light, as before she even finished making her proposal, Tony had suited up, had aimed his left hand towards the handle, and had then used his repulsor to blow the locking mechanism clean off the door.

"It's open now!" Pepper cheerfully said, almost with a skip in her step, and then followed Tony inside.

"Blow it up, I guess," Maya rolled her eyes as she finished her previous sentence, shook her head from side to side at Tony's hyperbolic solution, but then walked inside the lab, nonetheless.

The three of them stood by the door, taking in the state of the room they had just arrived to. Maya remembered the lab to have seen much better days; at least while she had been around to tidy it up – a time when blood spills had not been allowed to dry up and stain the concrete floors. Some of the lightbulbs had been blown, some had been removed, and others had been broken off, leaving the once pristine work area to have uneven sources of light. Even in the low light they were encountering, it was clear that someone had been tossing stuff around, completely disregarding the chaos left behind by such acts. In fact, for a brief yet scary instant, the floors littered with parts of dismembered electronic devices and the overall disarray of this lab reminded Tony of the time he had met a similar situation upon his arrival at the submarine in the South Pole. And he hoped that his son was not in the same condition in which he had found his redhead, back then.

"James? James, it's time to come out. It's Maya. I'm back!" the woman said, and neither Tony nor Pepper could keep the gasp of surprise that left their lips. It was one thing to imagine what it would be like to be reunited with their once-believed-dead son – and it was an entirely different thing to hear his name being uttered with the sole intention of getting a response from the little boy.

"James!" Maya insisted when her initial request was met by silence. "It's OK to show yourself. I'm here now."

"Maybe he's not here," Tony said, carefully avoiding words that could be misinterpreted by his hopeful redhead.

"He should be," Maya began walking towards her computer to fire it up. "Doom wouldn't let him be in the middle of the fight. And Killian is enough of a selfish asshole to just leave him behind."

"Howie? Are you in here?" Tony tried, his eyes and his HUD scanning whatever he could see of the lab, as grim thoughts crossed his mind. Did his son even know who he was? Did he even remember his own name? Did he recall that he had once been a happy baby, back at home, with his mom and his dad?

Did he remember _them_?

The group silently and patiently waited a few more seconds for a response. When they encountered the same silence as before, Tony opened his faceplate and narrowed his eyes at the brunette.

"Maya, if you fucking lied to us… if you told us that–"

"He's here," Pepper's shaking palms landed on her chest and then briefly on her mouth. "He-he's here… Tony…"

"Where? Where is he, Pep?"

"I don't know. I can't see him. But I can feel him. He's here, Tony," the ginger grabbed him by his arm, her eyes filling up with tears of joy. "He's here! He's here!"

Tony gave Pepper's hand on his arm a light squeeze before he took a step towards the middle of the lab. He looked left, right, and then underneath one of the nearby lab tables, but his HUD did not show any signs of human life. There were readings of rodents, insects and other minor life forms, but nothing showed the presence of a little boy hiding nearby.

"Pep, I don't… I mean…"

"Jimmy!" Pepper joined Tony where he stood. "Jimmy! It's Mommy and Daddy! We… we're not mad!"

Tony's head snapped to his left to stare at Pepper in confusion, only a second later remembering that Pepper could not only_ see_ auras, but she could_ sense_ people's feelings as well. And what would a small child believe of his parents if he was suddenly _abandoned_ by them? What would a baby, even one as unique as their son was, assume of his family if he one day was left behind?

"Howie, come out! We… _I'm_ not mad at you. I… I'm sorry we haven't been around. I'm sorry that–"

Tony's next words were interrupted by the sound of something falling to the floor, just a few feet from where they were now standing, making both parents gasp. Time seemed to stand still. Their hearts appeared to have skipped a beat. And just as they had gathered enough courage to take yet another step in the direction the sound had come from, the electricity in the room was cut down.

"Dammit!" Maya slammed her hands against the keyboard. "I wasn't done double-checking that our blueprints are still accurate!"

"We'll make due," Pepper said, her armor starting to cover her body when she felt a chill run down her spine. "We need to get out of here, soon. I sense Doombots coming. Let's find Jimmy and get out."

"How many?" Tony asked, his faceplate closing once more.

"Too many for us to take down on our own," Pepper replied.

"Split up," Maya grabbed a flashlight, "I'll take the middle."

"Right," Pepper said.

"Left," Tony stated.

Before anything else could take place, the three members of the resistance began frantically searching for the youngest Stark.

The lab seemed so impossibly large despite how much smaller it was compared to the Makluan Temple. The lack of proper illumination caused Maya to stumble a few times, cursing loudly every time she did so, as she kicked more and more stuff out of her way – not immediately realizing that what she was walking into were meant to be _traps_. Tony's HUD was working on overdrive, adding only to the inventor's frustration that, even with all his technology at his disposition, he was unable to scan the entire area for his son… or to focus on what was _actually_ happening before him.

How difficult could it really be, one might wonder, to find a small child in one room? He had done it before, when James had escaped his crib back at the now non-existent Stark Solutions penthouse. If his son was here, being searched by three goddamned adults, why was he so difficult to find?

Unless, of course, it was because he was not really here. Unless Maya had lied about his whereabouts. Unless Pepper was mistaken about feeling his aura. Unless this was all just a fucked up dream or a hallucination of his, much like the ones that kept randomly attempting to take over his brain… as it was the case right now.

Tony stopped where he stood, closed his eyes, and shook his head to clear his mind. He did not know why or how, but his eyes were seeing things that he knew were not really there. One moment, he was seeing what he knew was reality: Maya's old lab in Castle Doom. The next moment, he was seeing the penthouse, _his_ penthouse, with the living room furniture upturned by him when he had been searching for his missing child.

He knew the similarities were there, but this was not enough of a good reason for his eyes to blend the two situations to the extent that he was not sure where or _when_ he currently was.

He opened his eyes and took in a deep breath to calm his slowly rising vital signs. He knew that Pepper could see them on her HUD and that, even if she was not at present actively monitoring his vitals, she could still sense his distress. He had to calm down. He had to focus. He had to do the job he had dragged his ass all the way to Latveria for.

He spared a glance in the general direction where Maya's flashlight randomly shone at different parts of the lab. It appeared as if she was not having much luck with her search, either; a fact that made his faith begin to evaporate. He was almost at the end of his side of the room, as was Maya, which could only mean that James Howard Stark was not truly in here. Or that he was remarkably good at hide-and-seek, if one still wanted to be naïve about what was going on.

_It'll break her heart_, Tony thought of his wife, watching her from his current position as she desperately searched every inch of her side of the room. Her presence and actions were clear to him thanks to the enhancements brought on by the suit, but this only meant that he could easily see how hopeful she still was. She did not move from one spot until she inspected it to exhaustion, and only then would she move to the next inch in her search. She was clinging to hope – hanging by a thread; drawing at straws, and bleeding, breathing and sweating that incredible amount of bottomless optimism he knew her to have and loved her for.

"Tony… I… I'm sorry."

Maya's words reached only his ears; Pepper was too engrossed in her task to notice that her two companions had stopped their search – that they had given up. It was almost as the time he and Pepper had realized they would no longer find anyone else alive during the train derailment incident, years ago. _Almost._ This situation was much worse to him, however: he actually personally _knew_ who the victim was.

His son.

He retracted the armor and looked down, all of his willpower busy with keeping him from lashing out. He knew it was not really anyone's fault other than Killian's and Doom's, but that did not mean his rational side was in a position to silence his emotional one. His hands were shaking. His heart was racing. And this time, he did not care if Pepper could sense his escalating distress. He needed to get it all out now, before Pepper fell prey to the same reality and understanding that he was already facing. Before his redhead realized their son was gone, that he had been taken out of their reach once again, just when they had been so close to getting him back.

He inhaled through his nose. He swallowed hard. He lifted his head and aimed his eyes towards the spot where Pepper was now standing still. He could not see her outline as clearly without the suit on him to aid him, but he could see enough natural glow from her own armor to know where she was. He licked his dried lips, exhaled through his mouth, and just as he was about to call her name, he heard her speak instead.

"Jimmy?" her voice was but a soft gasp, yet in the utter silence of the lab, it carried into his ears as if she had shouted the name with all she had.

Neither Maya nor Tony knew if she was actually speaking to the child, or if she was starting to let the pain finally take over her. She was not moving much. She was not speaking much. She was not doing much of anything at all, actually, until the unmistakable sound of the Rescue armor pushing into its backpack form bounced off the walls.

Pepper gulped, slowly lowered herself until she was crouching, her left fingertips hovering over the floor to help her stay in place, and decided that technology – the same technology she had once so blindly relied upon to tell her what reality was – was absolutely _wrong_.

The suit had told her nothing was there, but Extremis had told her that there was. And now that the suit was gone, now that her eyes were allowed to do what they were supposed to do, she could see that Extremis was right.

"James," Pepper said in a particularly slow and loving voice that Tony had only heard when she spoke to their child. It was probably a _mother's_ tone; one that he would have never known existed in her if their son had never been born.

"It's OK. It's alright. It's me. It's _Bep_."

Just like that, after those simple words, the electrical power returned to the room; all thanks to little James Howard Stark pressing the button that he had learned would make every shiny thing in this room turn on. Even lights that no one had even been aware were there.

Sensing that he was nearby had been a test for her mind.

Seeing his aura in the dark had been shattering to her soul.

Witnessing his current state of affairs was a bullet to her heart.

A bullet that only made her hatred for Aldrich Killian grow even more.

The little boy was pressing his back against a corner of the wall, his left hand still on the button that had restored power to the lab. In his right hand, he held a small piece of molded bread, crumbs of it attached to his lips, chin, and sprinkled all over his stained, ripped, old-looking shirt, which was a couple of sizes too big for him; yet, said clothing item appeared to be the only thing covering his tiny and disheveled form. His face was marked with what the redhead knew to be remnants of untended tears, sported what had to be very recent bruises and scratches (some of which were disappearing before her eyes), and small traces of blood. His arms, and whatever she could see of his legs, told a similar story of the misfortune her son had survived by himself in God-knew-how-long. A similar fate that she herself had personally overcome once before.

She could take it.

She _had_ taken it.

And she would surely be able to take it again, in the blink of an eye.

But not her son.

Not. Her. Son.

Even if she knew that he could physically take the abuse, perhaps more than she did, this was not what she wanted for her poor son.

He was innocent. A mere child. Still just a baby, really. Who would do such things to a baby?

A monster. A heartless, son of a bitch.

And that was exactly what Aldrich Killian was.

She was angry. Extremis was angry. And they both wanted revenge. Right now.

She bit her tongue to keep her face from contorting into one that would surely frighten the already scared and confused toddler. She pushed down her feelings of blind anger that she knew her son would misinterpret as being directed towards him. She allowed a smile to appear on her face. She let tears start to pool in her hazel orbs; tears of so many emotions she could not successfully list. Although, she was sure that happiness was at the top of it.

Her son was alive. Her baby was alive. And he was standing just three feet before her, waiting to be told that he was never ever again going to be alone.

James tilted his head to the right, knitted his brow, and even lowered his head the smallest bit – his mouth slowly opening to utter a single word to the woman he clearly remembered dearly caring for him.

"Mama?"

The little boy smiled when he felt the change in his mother's mood, and Pepper Potts's knees hit the ground.

"MAMA!"

She gasped when she felt the warmth of his skin against hers, his head buried into her belly, and his arms barely being able to get halfway around her midsection. Her trembling hands held onto his body as she closed her eyes, inhaling the sweet toddler scent she knew belonged to him. She began sobbing and laughing at the same time, almost did not catch the quick steps closing in on her, and then opened her eyes again when she heard her son whimper a little bit.

"Mama, I hurt."

For a second, the redhead thought that James was injured, or that maybe he had been poisoned in the same way she had been infected by Whitney Stane. But this was not a submarine, and James was a lot stronger than any other baby boy. He was the son of Iron Man and Rescue, after all. He was a very special and resilient little boy.

Not to mention, her aura told her that he was fine. He was more than fine. He was elated. He was excited. He was barely able to contain his endless joy. His parents had finally come back for him. Maya had finally done what she had said she would do.

"I'm sorry," Pepper said as she pulled back from him to wipe his face with her hands, suddenly realizing the toddler had merely implied her embrace had been too much, even for him. "I'm sorry, baby. Mommy is sorry."

"Okay, Mama," James carefully patted his mother's cheek. "I okay."

Pepper chuckled, amazed by the child's understanding and his use of words that she knew were beyond his age. He was still speaking in broken sentences, but it was clear that whatever he was able to piece together, made a lot more sense than anyone would have expected of him.

Before another second went by, Pepper began kissing her son's face all over, earning her a delighted giggle from the ticklish boy. He tried to return some of the pecks his mother was giving him, but she was too fast for him right now. The redhead alternated between hugging him, kissing him, and telling her child that she loved him and that she had missed him, stopping her task only when she saw a familiar look on his face suddenly appear.

She did not need to have Extremis to know who was right behind her. Or why her son was suddenly in complete awe.

She felt Tony kneel to her right, and his left hand land on her shoulder to balance himself, while his shaky right hand reached out to touch his son's face. The little boy returned the favor by using his index finger to poke his father's cheekbone a couple of times, squeaking in bliss when Tony laughed at the childish move.

"Dada."

Tears began welling in Tony's eyes at hearing his son using the word he had longed to hear him say when referring to him, but he held them back to remain strong for his family, instead gracing his son with the most joyful smile he could muster.

"Howie."

James's eyes lit up at the look of approval he was now receiving from his parents before he found himself being crushed by them. They were just as he remembered them – warm, loving, and kind. They were nothing like the two other men he had been hiding from in this small room. They were nothing like the evil metal men that he had prayed would not find him here.

"Guys," Maya's voice was apologetic. "I hate to break up the moment, but we _have_ to leave."

"Aya!" the child said with glee when he suddenly remembered that the woman was also there.

"Hi, James," the brunette smiled and waved her hand, and the toddler giggled at the gesture. She wanted to pick him up and hug him, even ask for forgiveness for taking so long to come back for him, but she did not have the heart to pry the little boy from his parents yet again – no matter how voluntary this particular instance appeared to be.

"You're right," Pepper nodded, wiped tears from her face, and stood up with James in her arms. "We still have a lot to do before we can relax."

"How close are the bots, Pep?" Tony was now standing up, his eyes checking for signs of injury on his son.

"They'll be here any minute. We need to keep going. We need to… well…"

"Separate," Tony finished for her, a sad smile appearing on his face.

"Yeah," she pulled her son closer to her face to place a quick kiss on his forehead.

James did not understand everything that was being said, but he did not have to. He could feel his parents' auras change; and he did not like what he saw. Just a second ago, they had both been very happy. But now, they were both beginning to show signs of fear and sadness again.

"Dada?" James grabbed a fistful of Tony's shirt. "Dada go?"

Tony briefly closed his eyes, wishing his son was older – much older – so that he would completely understand the gravity of the situation they were in. Even as an adult, he was yet to understand and accept what was happening around them. He could not imagine how someone so young could even begin to make sense of it all.

But he still had to try. He still had to attempt the almost impossible feat of explaining to a toddler that he had a very important job to do.

"Howie," Tony began after opening his eyes, his tone of voice one that the child recognized as one his father used when he was being serious about something. "You… I need to go, OK? I'll be back. But I need to go away for a little while. Do you understand that?"

The little boy's eyes began filling up with tears and his quivering mouth turned upside down, but he nodded anyway.

"Uh-huh."

"I'll come back to get you. I promise. But I need to do something first."

This time, the boy not only nodded, but he also sniffled, showing bravery and understanding beyond his years. Tony felt his heart break at seeing his son hold back wails, acting nothing like a child his age would at the idea of being separated from his father yet again.

"James," Maya walked a little closer to the family of three, sensing her assistance was needed to speed things along. "Do you remember the playroom?"

"Yah," the boy replied.

"Is it still there?"

James narrowed his eyes, looked away from the trio and in the direction the brunette knew the Power Core Room was located, and he then returned his attention to the group.

"Yah."

"OK. Good. That's good," Maya inhaled. "You have to go back there. Back into the playroom. And you have to go all the way to the middle. You think you can do that?"

"Uh-huh," James nodded, by now knowing the correct path to the center of the room.

"Howie," Tony grabbed his son's fist to get his full attention. "Mommy is going with you. She needs to go with you into the… playroom."

James furrowed his brow for an instant, obviously processing the words at his simpler level. He then stared away from his father and towards his mother, a look of disbelief on his face.

"Mama? Mama go… wif me?"

"Yes," Pepper nodded and gave her son a reassuring smile. "I want to go play there. Can you take me?"

The nervous gulp of the child was evident to the adults in the room; and fear for his mother's safety began pouring out of his little body. He had never taken anyone inside the playroom before – it had always just been him alone. And the one time he had tried to take Maya with him, she had almost been hurt. He knew that he could do things others could not do; and he was not sure if his mother would be able to make it to the room. He had just gotten her back, and as happy as he was that she wanted to go with him to the playroom, he did not want to see his Mama close her eyes to never open them again.

Just like that lady in one of the rooms in this hall was. He did not want his Mama to be unmoving, stinky and scary-looking, like that lady that shared aura colors with Maya.

"Don't be scared, sweetie," Pepper's smile never faltered. "I'll be OK. Right, Tony? I'll be OK in the playroom, right?"

"Yes," Tony smiled as well. "Your mom will be OK with you. And you know why? Because you're gonna take care of her, Howie. You're a big boy. You're strong. And your mom is strong, too. You and your Mama. You'll both be OK."

"You and me, Jimmy," Pepper rubbed her son's back. "It'll be you and me."

"You… and me, Mama?"

"Yup," Pepper nodded. "You and me."

"Dada go?"

"No. But I'll come back," Tony reminded his son. "I'll be back. Just… just stay away from bad people. Stay away from Killian. And stay away from Doom."

The child paled at the sound of the Metal Man's name, and his eyes widened in utter fear as he spoke again.

"Doom? _Daddy_ Doom?"

Suddenly, at the end of baby James's frightful response, Tony's blood turned to ice.

"_What_?"

"Tony, listen," Maya tried to intervene before the inventor blew up, but she was too late to react.

"Did he… did _my_ son… MY son… just say: _Daddy DOOM_?"

"Maya," Pepper's eyes suddenly turned dark, Extremis practically having a physical response, threateningly swirling around her body, even if James was the only one that could see it amass. "Why… why is he… WHY IS MY SON CALLING THAT SON OF A–"

"Pepper!" Maya interrupted the redhead before she cursed in front of her son. "It's not what you think. It's not what it _sounds _like."

"Not what we f–" Tony held back his tongue as well and then swallowed hard. "How _exactly_ is it NOT what it sounds like, Maya?"

"He doesn't mean it," Maya began, "Doom… he-he does want James to call him… like that… But James knows. James _understands_ that Doom is not his father."

"Does he?" Tony snapped back.

"Yes. He does. Believe me: your child can see how people connect. He can tell when people are related to each other. And he knows that Doom and he have nothing in common. At all."

"Then why is he calling him that?!" Pepper snarled.

"Because Doom beat it into him," Maya replied. "And the only way to return the favor to Doom is to get it together and do what we need to do. Right now."

Both Tony and Pepper opened their mouths to release another angry retort, but they then snapped them shut almost immediately so, when Maya's words proved to be too true to deny. Tony still had to go around the castle to manually install disruptors directly onto the handful of electricity generators that would not be automatically affected by the shutdown of the power core; the redhead and the toddler still had to get to the _playroom_ for any of the rest of their plans to take form; and Maya Hansen herself had to go find the second _Earth Mover_ and ensure the self-destruct sequence had been set in place.

And this was all not counting the battle taking place above them. Or the Mainframe. Or finding Aldrich Killian. Or attempting to fight Doom, hand-to-hand.

They were not even 1% into their mission. There was no time to waste arguing about the audacity the ruler of Latveria had in believing he could just sweep into James Howard Stark's life and force him to call him: Dad.

"Let's go," Tony finally said, redirecting his anger to the most important matter at hand. "Let's… let's just get going."

"Are you ready, Jimmy?" Pepper eyed her son with confidence. "Are you ready to take me to the playroom?"

"Yup," the boy practiced using the new word he had just minutes ago learned from his mother before his eyes turned to his father's identical ones, staring back at him with feelings the child could also sense were coming from his mom.

Not a nanosecond later, the three of them hugged each other tightly, their eyes firmly closed to focus only on burning into their minds this epic moment unfolding before them. James was too young to know or even fathom what was crossing his parents' heads right now, but he knew enough to somewhat discern what this moment truly was.

Tony pulled away from the embrace long enough to deeply kiss his ginger despite knowing that his son was watching their every move. It was not as if the child had never seen his parents _smash faces_ before, but he was now old enough to wonder and verbally question what was taking place between the two adults.

If everything went well and according to plan, there would be a time much later, after this war ended, to explain to his son the ways of the world.

"I'll see you upstairs, Pep," Tony held her face in his hands.

"I'll see you upstairs, Tony."

Pepper used her right hand to touch one of Tony's on her face. She then squeezed his hand tightly, locked eyes with him for an instant, and then nodded to let him know it was time to leave.

The genius' eyes landed on his son's and he smiled fondly at him before his face then turned serious as he ushered to his son one last command.

"Keep your mother safe. Protect her. Do you understand?"

As if wanting to show that he did, the little boy held onto his mother tighter and even narrowed his eyes before giving a resolute nod, his expression denoting nothing but serious business, and Tony could not tell if the boy looked more like Pepper or himself in that moment.

After one last glance towards his beloved family, Tony Stark vanished behind the mantle of Iron Man, and he then left the room, wishing in his heart that he would not later regret not saying goodbye.

Pepper closed her eyes after he was no longer visible, opening them again only when she felt Tony's aura was not on their floor anymore. Her gaze then shifted from staring at the door to look towards her son. She was surprised to see that the look of determination she had seen on the inventor many times before in situations like these was practically being mimicked on her son. He was not even two years of age, but he was already acting like the hero his father was.

"Maya, let's go."

Not needing to be told twice, Maya Hansen ran behind Pepper, both women stopping only when they reached the expected fork in the road. Tony had gone down the right side of the lab, while they had taken the left side of the same hall. Their destinations were going to be different, however, and now the brunette had to head to the right, and Pepper and James to the left.

The two former friends silently stared at one another and then gave each other a small, comforting smile. It was a far cry from an apology or a wish for good luck, but it was all they both could manage to do at this time.

Pepper was the first one to break eye contact with the woman and turned around in place. Before she could speed towards the starting point of the hidden route to the Power Core Room, Maya's hand on her arm made her stop.

"Pepper, wait."

"What?"

"I…" Maya exhaled nervously. The moment she had been waiting for had finally arrived.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Maya opened her mouth to reply to her, but the right words refused to come out. She was not even sure how to start the odd conversation – how to convince Pepper to trust her and follow her advice. It was a long shot. A near impossibility. But at the end the day, Whitney Stane could not carry out her mission if Maya Hansen did not carry out hers.

"Here," Maya suddenly said as she produced a self-injecting syringe from one of her pants' pockets. Pepper's suspicion of the purpose of the medical tool was written all over her face, and she made no attempt to grab the injection from her.

"Take it," Maya extended her arm even closer to the redhead. "You have to take this with you."

"What is–"

_BOOM!_

Everyone's heads snapped towards the origin of the loud explosion sound, to see that the Doombots that Pepper had sensed coming had finally arrived. They were coming from the direction of Maya's lab, and the ginger prayed that they had not found Tony on his way off of their current floor.

"Go!" Pepper told the brunette with every intention to begin running away from the incoming robots that had clearly already spotted them and had begun to attack from a distance, but Maya once again stopped her with her hand.

"No, Pepper. Take this. You… look. This… this is for Tony. You'll need it to help him if Doom takes control over him."

"What?" Pepper's voice sounded exactly like how irritated she was. "Maya, we don't have time to–"

"THEN SHUT UP AND LISTEN!" the botanist replied, startling the redhead into a brief moment of silence; a moment that proved to be enough for Maya Hansen to make her case.

"This will counter Doom's control over Tony," Maya grabbed Pepper's hand and placed the syringe within it. "This serum will reset and reprogram Tony's Extremis virus. It will have it come back in full capability, but without Doom's influence. The process of rebooting will make Tony unconscious while the virus is awakened again, giving you enough time to either strap Tony down or stop Doom before he tries to control Tony again."

"Are you crazy?" Pepper spat before she grabbed Maya by the shoulder, pulled her to her side of the hall and behind a wall, and then placed her son on the ground. A second later, she double-tapped the center of her backpack, changed into her superhero form, and then released a large blast from her repulsors and unibeam to hold back the incoming Doombots.

"Pepper, listen!" Maya pleaded. "This is the only way we can save Tony. If Doom realizes he can't control him after you use this on him, he _will_ kill him. This is the only way I could figure out to buy us some time until we can stop Doom. If Doom controls Tony, we're screwed. And if he doesn't, then Tony dies. Do you understand that? Tony, _your_ Tony, the father of your son, dies!"

"I won't let that happen."

"It will, no matter what you do, if you don't use this when Doom takes over Tony's Extremis."

"But I–"

Whatever Pepper was going to reply was interrupted by yet another loud explosion coming from down the hall. Knowing that time was running short, and seeing that Pepper was still holding the syringe in her hand, Maya ran towards her side of the hall, barely missing a laser attack.

"Maya!"

"Use it, Pepper!" the scientist screamed from her end of the hall, walking in reverse to make sure he got her point across. "When Tony loses it, use it! It's the only way to get him back!"

"But I don't trust you!" Pepper screamed back. "How do I know this is even what you say it is?"

"It's OK if you don't trust me. But, what do you have to lose?"

What _did_ she have to lose? If Doom won – if Doom overtook Tony, she knew that the inventor would not want to live to be the man's puppet. She knew that Tony had made very clear his position on unwillingly becoming Doctor Doom's personal gestapo for world domination.

"_That's… not the point, Pep."_

"_Then what is?"_

"_I… I couldn't activate the world's supply of nuclear weapons in the literal blink of an eye back then, when Basil controlled me. But now I can. I can destroy the world in a second, without anything to stop me from doing so."_

"_Tony, you won't… you…"_

"_Pepper," he grabbed onto her hands on his face. "I turned myself into the one thing I hate the most: a weapon. You know how I feel about weapons. You know what I'd like you to do to my weapons. Any weapon."_

"_Tony," she tried to smile but her lips trembled instead. "I'm not… __**decommissioning**__ you, if that's what you're asking. Your Extremis may be… weaponized… but you're still you. You're still Tony. I'm not… you can't expect me to… to…"_

"_We talked about this, remember?"_

"_Tony–"_

"_We did. I know you remember."_

_Pepper closed her eyes and looked down. _

"_Things were different then, Tony. We thought I was dying. We thought we were up against S.H.I.E.L.D. only. We didn't know about Doom yet."_

"_Pepper…"_

"_No, Tony!" she snapped her eyes open. "Don't ask me to do this! I can't!"_

"_I know you can," he whispered to her and she closed her eyes again. She could not face him, not like this. He was breaking her resolve. She was going to give in to his request. She could feel it. She knew he was right. She knew what he was saying made sense. That did not mean she had to accept it._

"_Don't let me hurt you. If Doom takes over me, don't let me hurt you."_

"_Tony–"_

"_Promise me."_

"_But, Tony…"_

"_**Promise**__ me, Pepper."_

"_I…" she hesitated. "I promise."_

"_On our son," he insisted. "Promise me on our son."_

_The redhead opened her eyes slowly, pulled away from his face and locked eyes with him. They remained quiet for an instant, and when her eyes dilated for a short nanosecond, it was obvious that she was reading him._

_What she saw there, she did not like._

_There was desperation – a crippling need for reassurance. He expected her to make good on her promise. He expected her to follow through with her mission, no matter what. He expected her to make the call, if it came to that._

_What else could she have done, but to agree to it? How else would she have been able to calm his fears?_

"_I promise," she finally said with a nod. "I promise, on Jimmy."_

Suddenly, somehow, the situation he had so deeply feared was no longer hypothetical. Somehow, it was now a lot more possible than either of them had ever wanted it to be. Maybe Maya Hansen was right. Or maybe she was wrong. Yet, at the end of the day, the redhead had a promise to keep to her blue-eyed boy. And she always kept her promises.

Always.

"Wait," suddenly, an important thought crossed the redhead's mind and her head snapped up to stare at the brunette standing several feet away from her. "How will I know if it works?"

"After ten seconds, you will know," Maya screamed again. "Just make sure that you–"

The rest of the botanist's response was muffled by the sound of the wall on her left falling down on her, courtesy of a massive attack coming from the Doombots. The young woman screeched as she attempted to jump away from the mountain of concrete crumbling between them, leaving Pepper unable to then and there determine if the scientist had made it safely to the other side of the blast. In turn, Rescue picked up her son, put up a barrier around them, gave her back to the blast, and then waited for the commotion to stop. Once it did, the result of the blast turned out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise: the fork in the road was gone – and the Doombots were gone along with it… for now.

Pepper curiously and silently stared at the syringe in her hand one more time before putting it away in her suit, trusting that the time to use it never came. The heroine then took down the armor's force field and began flying towards the location of their mission, hoping against hope that she did not really _need_ to know whatever disclaimer Maya Hansen was about to share with her before the wall had descended upon her.

It was just a syringe, after all. And her husband was Tony Stark.

A little tool like that just could never, _ever,_ hope to take down Iron Man.

_Right?_

xxxXXXxxx

_Doctor Doom stood atop the snowy precipice, staring at the five-member team climbing the rock face of the taller peak, across from the one he stood upon. His vision was zoomed in to be able to see them clearly despite the distance, and his hearing magnified to be able to easily make out what they were saying over the raging howls of the blizzard that was currently ravaging the Alps. _

_ At this moment, they were all cursing the name of Tony Stark for assigning them this path to travel, and were laying claim to whom would be the first to __**kick his ass**__ once they were in his presence again. Evidently, in spite of being a mere forty feet below a safer path that would allow them to continue on their way, and having survived this long under conditions that would have already meant the death of the most experienced mountain climbers in the world, the group had no shortage of complaints regarding their circumstances and progress. _

_"Aren't you going to deal with them?"_

_ Doom did not bother to respond, nor did he even turn his head to the source of the inquiry. He knew who it was, just as he knew that any form of acknowledgement was meaningless._

"_You know that it would be so easy to do, Victor." _

_This time, she stepped in front of him and he could not help but look down at her for a moment. Her face was looking up at his, an expression of compassion and understanding adorning her features, with the slightest underscore of mischievous thoughts hiding beneath the surface. Her violet eyes, gifted to her by the rare genetic condition, __**Alexandria's Genesis**__, burned with intense emotion that her face did not betray. Her strawberry blonde hair gleamed as if under rays of sunlight and rested calmly upon her shoulders, all in defiance of the storm._

_His dear Valeria. _

_Oh, how cruel Doom knew the Fates to be. He knew it now like he never had before, and his previous knowledge had been intimate, to be sure. How he had longed to have his precious fiancée by his side once more; to see her face and hear her voice and feel her love. Well, he had certainly been granted his wish, though not at all like how he had thought. _

_He had first seen her again shortly after having been administered the strain of Extremis that Killian had developed to heal his body. Once the physical damage had been restored (though his original scars still remained), he had taken a few days to rest and recover his strength. Upon waking, he had found Valeria sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at him, waiting for him to wake up and see her._

_He had known almost immediately that she was not real. Whatever Extremis had done to heal him, it had produced an unintended side-effect. That had been expected, to say the least, and the result was far less troublesome than it could have been. Somehow, his subconscious mind, his thoughts, his feelings and desires that he did not express even to himself, were manifesting in a visual and auditory representation of his long lost love. _

_Staring down at her now, Doom wanted so much to remove one of his gauntlets and reach out to touch her face with his bare hand. He knew that there was nothing there, and that even if he had felt her, it would have been his brain producing false signals to let him believe that he was feeling her warm flesh. It might almost have been worth it. But no; he would not succumb to that weakness. Not now. Not ever. He was way beyond that stage by now. _

_He lifted his eyes from hers and focused again on the group climbing the mountain in the distance, knowing and accepting the fact that the figment was never ever going to leave his side._

_It had been one thing listening to her input. Knowing that he was actually listening to himself, his subconscious mind telling him things his waking mind was unaware of or not acknowledging, had proven to be very useful so far. It had been at the suggestion of this hallucinated woman that the mad doctor had moved his attack plans forward by several weeks. _

_Having known deep down that Maya Hansen had betrayed him, he had listened to his love's recommendation of launching his attack at a time when his enemies were not expecting it to come, and it had worked out exceedingly well. The rebellion's efforts, those coordinated by S.H.I.E.L.D. and those that were independent, had all been sloppily thrown together at best. _

_It had also been at Valeria's suggestion that he had struck again in waves, claiming more of the world as he went. Even the strategy of placing his own citizens inside some of his Doombot soldiers and dispersing them to guard his lands had come from her lips. They were all ideas that had been inside him and, under the right circumstances, he would have thought of them on his own. But with the apparition of the woman he loved manifesting before him, thanks to the effects of Extremis, he now had a unique window into his inner thoughts that had not been present before. The fact that said window took the form he was most likely to appreciate was certainly a plus. _

_He felt her place her hands upon his shoulders and he looked back down at her. Her expression now was one of encouragement, as she knew what he was thinking of doing. Even this action was intended to further motivate him to act. Being even closer to him now, he noted the only physical feature that she shared with the annoying redhead across the way; the light smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. _

_Beyond that one trait, Valeria bared no resemblance to Pepper Potts-Stark. Their personalities were so alike, however, that it had led him to develop a personal resentment toward the ginger for continuing to live and bring happiness to Iron Man's life, while Doom himself had to make do with an illusion. _

_Knowing his rage was beginning to boil again, Valeria smirked and moved her hands to the sides of his helmet, holding his armored face. He could feel the warmth from them, regardless of their lack of substance._

"_Just remember: she needs to live long enough to make it to the castle. She has to die in front of Tony in order to truly break him. You'll never be able to permanently dominate his mind otherwise. He needs to fail her. So don't go too far, this time. Making him think she's gone is good enough for now." _

_With that, she gave him a smile of pure love, though her eyes still held a note of vicious encouragement. She then pressed her lips against the mouth slit of his faceplate. To his annoyance, Doom could not resist letting his eyes flutter closed for a moment. Once he reminded himself that he was basically daydreaming about kissing a disguised version of his own mind, his eyes snapped open and Valeria was gone once again. _

_Focusing once more on the group in the distance, Doom raised his hand and sent forth a little illusion of his own. Sending out very subtle, undetectable sonic emissions with pinpoint accuracy, the tyrant was essentially poking at the ear drums of Pepper Potts-Stark, intending to disorient her enough that the result would be to bring the group's travels to a sudden and tragic end. _

_As he watched, the redheaded seemed to stumble in her climb. One of her legs reacted as if she had missed a step, although she had in fact placed her foot properly upon a sturdy foothold. The group had a momentary panic as it appeared that the ginger would fall. However, the X-Man known as Iceman quickly froze one of her hands to the rock face, preventing her fall. _

_The young woman's confusion was evident afterward, but the group continued on until they were all safely upon the walking trail above where they had been. Doom took to the air and followed along while maintaining his same distance from them, looking for another opportunity to shake things up. In fact, that gave him a good idea in and of itself. He only needed to make sure Pepper survived and made it to Latveria; the rest were of no concern to him and could die here, today. And now he had an idea how to go about it._

_He directed his sonic emitters at the snow-covered mountain top above them, increasing their intensity. He watched the travelers as he did so, and noted that Potts seemed to grow uncomfortable again, judging by her face. Her heightened sensitivity caused by her own Extremis strain must have allowed her to still sense the waves he was putting out, even though they were not directed at her._

_After a few more moments, the snow above the group began to move, sliding slowly at first and then gaining momentum the more it picked up along its path. His targets panicked as he expected, with the Black Widow even screaming out a warning, before activating devices that immediately anchored them to the mountain side. The snow did, however, hit both Pepper and Iceman head on, knocking both of them off of the narrow pathway and taking them along the ride into the abyss below._

_Doom smirked in satisfaction over this. He knew that the girl would survive. He had learned about the unique features of her Extremis from the data he had collected from her. In addition to that, the mutant with her was the perfect individual to protect her from suffering too much damage while in a situation such as this. He was certain he would see the two of them again. _

_He returned his attention to the other three who remained on the mountain path; Maya Hansen, the Black Widow, and the mutant known as Nightcrawler. He could finish them off now, certainly. He could kill them in any way he liked; he could even open a portal and fling them inside, and let them spend eternity in the company of the screaming souls forever condemned in Yogthulu's realm. However, he felt that his plans would best be served if they were allowed to continue on their way without further obstruction. Yes, he would allow them to reach their rendezvous with Stark and inform him of what had happened here. He would certainly be dismayed upon hearing the news, and would begin to question himself the longer it took for his wife to return to him. His doubts and feelings of inadequacy would grow, and when the time came to kill the redhead for good, all would fall into place quite nicely._

"_Well done," Valeria whispered into his ear from her new location; riding upon his back, her arms wrapped around his neck to give the illusion of needing his presence to remain in the air. It did not matter to him. Nor did it matter whether he interpreted this praise as coming from his dead love or from his own mind. He was pleased with the acknowledgement either way. _

xxxXXXxxx

He could not hear the pitiful, muffled battle cries of the insolent fools as they attempted to reach the level of the fortress where his throne room lay – all in the hopes that they could somehow break into it and stop him and his tactics – but he was aware enough to realize that they were well on their way here. They would be here any moment now, busting through the doors and demanding that he put a stop to his plans, as if _they _knew better than _he_ about what the world _really_ needed. About what society-as-a-whole needed.

Freedom. Right to choose. Free will. Democracy. They were nothing more than childish fallacies, he knew. Yet, almost every other wretched human being he had come across in his entire life believed these made-up concepts to be the absolute foundation for any worthy civilization around the planet.

_Fools._ They were all _fools_. Fools who had done exactly as he had expected of them. Fools who were about to walk into their own final resting place, while all he had had to do to get them where he wanted them was to sit on his throne and wait.

The treacherous woman he had begrudgingly held in his castle on Killian's recommendation had clearly provided them with the blueprints to his home and his entire land, making them believe they had the upper hand. He could not wait to see the looks on their faces; hear the desperation in their voices; witness the swift realization of defeat that would befall them once they joined him in his chamber. It would all be too amusing. Too humorous. Too predictable. Too close to what he had foreseen.

In that regard, the upcoming battle sounded almost pointless and boring to him, even before it started, but he knew it needed to be done this way. Stark was already on the premises, wandering alone around the basement area of his complex, searching for something Doom cared not to investigate. Whatever it was, it would fail, just as all of anyone's attempts at stopping him had failed. If he wanted to, he could have killed them all, in the blink of an eye, the moment they had set foot on his land. But he needed the insufferable inventor and the stubborn redhead to join their pathetic army of wannabe heroes for the last part of his plan to work.

The Mainframe would finally be fully functional, once he took over Tony Stark's fragile mind.

Victor von Doom knew his untraceable rays were already getting the better of the young billionaire, forcing onto him an augmented reality that was being successful in slowing him down; in making him question what he saw, what he felt, and what he had to do. This was just the preview; the opening act, and the infuriating youngster was already well on his path to losing the advantage they all thought he undeniably had.

Doctor Doom smirked at the absurdity of the beliefs held by his enemies. To think that an offensive attack in the open as a means to try to distract him from realizing the true location of the Starks granted them any gain over his carefully concocted plans was laughable. Even the small child knew better than that. He had been smart enough to hide in the botanist's abandoned lab. He had been smart enough to stay out of Doom's way for now.

But what of the adults on site? Had they had an ounce of the same sense the young boy had displayed at his tender age?

No. Of course not!

They had all madly scrambled inside his castle; loudly, stupidly, and even disrespectfully, as if they had any right to be here in the first place. Had they not seen what he had done to those who had tried to stop his ruling before? Had the sight of decimated cities, destroyed landmarks, and people working for him against their will not been enough to warn them of what the future would bring? Were they all really _that_ dense?

Or were they simply dumb enough to hope that, somehow, the universe would endorse their cause more than it would endorse his own?

The monarch of Latveria had to keep himself from rolling his eyes at the thought. The idea of a higher-life form rooting for their cause as a reason for their lousy actions was nothing but moronic. Though, it was not as idiotic as the belief that there was something or someone, out there in the vast universe, that gave a damn about anything else in this world.

About _them_.

And about whether or not they lost their lives at his hand.

_BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!_

The tyrant turned to his left, staring into the eyes of his beloved, who stood next to his throne.

"Don't worry, Victor. I'm leaving now. I won't distract you during this battle," she began to back away, moving behind his throne, where he knew her apparition would simply vanish. "Make them feel your might, Doom."

Doctor Doom's eyes aimed towards the metal doors on the other side of the room and he smiled in condescension behind his mask.

Yes.

They were almost finally here.

Almost finally here to die.

xxxXXXxxx

_Aldrich Killian knew a thing or two about sneaking around. Being sneaky and subtle were practically his specialties. Getting into the hospital after hours, avoiding security and nurses alike, and making his way to the nursery located in the Maternity Ward, had all been fairly easy. He had prepared for this day, and the visits that he and his young belle had made to this institution of health had allowed him to make note of the schedules of the staff, as well as the locations of security cameras, places to hide, and parts of the environment he could use to cause distractions and lure potential witnesses away._

_ He knew Jill was in a room down the hall from where he was now; getting some well-earned sleep following the ordeal she had been through in the birthing process – one that had been highly more complicated than any of the ones the doctors around here had ever seen in their entire medicine-practicing lives. The poor, tired girl did not know he was here, and neither did anyone else. Indeed, he had not even been present in the hospital during her labor. He had instructed her to answer any questions about where the father was by saying that she simply did not know. He did not want there to be any record of his having been in the hospital at all today, just in case things did not go as he hoped._

_ As he stepped into the nursery and quietly closed the door behind him, he practically shook with anticipation and excitement. The moment of truth was upon him, and while it would likely not be the final step in what he needed to do to cure himself, it would still be the largest hurdle that was finally cleared if he had succeeded today. As he looked around the room, he saw two dozen infants sleeping in their incubators, none of them awakened by his entrance, although a few were fidgeting a little. As was traditional for simplifying identification, the male infants were draped in blue blankets and the females were given pink. _

_ Killian began moving among the incubators, focusing only on the pink-covered infants, knowing that his latest child was female. His latest, and yet the only one to survive; the only one that had not died in the womb or moments after birth. The mixture of the secondary-reaction strain of Extremis he had injected into Jill eleven months ago, and all of the various strains that had merged with his DNA and been carried along in the process of fertilization, had not caused any complications for the baby she had carried to term. This was literally uncharted territory, even for him._

_ After looking over the name tags on the incubators for about a minute, he finally found what he was looking for. Inside the little transparent box lied a pink-skinned baby covered by a pink blanket that she had somehow managed to mostly kick off of herself. The name tag hanging off the side read: Virginia Hayes. Seeing the name gave him a new surge of excitement; it was the name he and Jill had decided on when they had learned that they were having a girl. He had told her, and truthfully at that, that her last name sounded prettier with the first name she wanted to give her daughter. Virginia Killian certainly did not have a nice ring to it, but he felt no impact to his ego in that fact._

_ He leaned over, getting a much closer look at the child's sleeping face. She had the typical scrunched-up face of a newborn, though not quite as harshly. She was cuter than most babies were immediately after birth, and he suspected that she would be almost radiant in the days ahead, as her features softened. He noted that she had a thin layer of dark hair that showed signs of redness, and he had a feeling that it would bloom into full-on red with a little bit of time as well. Yes, she would definitely end up getting her mother's hair._

_ Seeing that she was deep asleep, and knowing how to use a needle to such a degree that almost no discomfort would be felt, Killian withdrew the syringe from his pocket, plunged it into the yielding and unmarked infant flesh at the crook of the elbow, minimizing any noticeable puncture. The baby girl fidgeted a little, but then settled into whatever passed for dreams in the incomplete brain of an infant. Killian withdrew as much blood as he knew he could safely do, while still acquiring enough for a proper analysis._

_ As he removed the needle and placed it into a baggie and then back into his pocket, he took a moment to look the girl over again. She was his daughter. That fact was amazing by itself. He had impregnated many women over the years as part of his efforts, but this was the only time that the child had survived. This sleeping baby in front of him was a successful reproduction of his bloodline. That alone was enough to be proud of, and Killian found himself smiling an honest smile that had nothing to do with the hopes of his research in curing himself. He smiled, for the only time he ever would in his life, as a man with the realization that he was undeniably a father._

_ He pulled the blanket up to cover her fully once more, and then lightly stroked the top of her head, running his fingers through the thin hair. He then quietly exited the nursery, making his way out of the hospital and back to his lab. He had a long night ahead of him, as he would need to make several tests and checks of the girl's blood, all while making sure that Jill's blood, which still circulated in the infant's veins, did not influence the results. He had already set up his equipment to ignore any readings of Jill's blood, samples of which he had exposed it to in order for it to be identified, but he would still need to be very careful when reading the results. It would likely be very early morning before he was done, and if all went well, it would be the morning of the most joyful day he had had in a long time._

_ But it was not to be._

_ After finally getting back the results of the blood test, then rechecking it, then rerunning the test several times and checking it again, Killian was in a rage and began throwing his equipment across his lab in a fit over what the data was telling him. It should have been impossible from everything he knew, but it did provide an explanation as to why the girl had survived birth._

_ According to the blood test results, his daughter did not have so much as a single virion of Extremis, either in nanoprobe form or otherwise._

_ Somehow, in spite of his sperm carrying a version of every strain he had ever injected himself with, Jill's ova carrying the strain he had injected into her, and nine months of having Jill's blood and bodily fluids being supplied to the baby throughout the entire developmental process, none of these various versions of the virus had carried over, much less combined into a new, __**natural-birth**__ strain as he had desired! _

_ It was the ultimate fake out; the girl had made it through birth as he had wanted, but she was completely useless to him! It would have been better if she __**had**__ died. At least then, he would have known right away that he had failed again, instead of being imbued with false hope. His earlier feelings of pride and satisfaction about having a daughter at all were completely gone now, his disappointment in yet another, more infuriating failure wiping them away like an eraser over a chalkboard. _

_ To think that, as he had awaited the results, he had indulged in fantasies of taking his new little bundle of joy to work with him at Stark Tower, showing her off to his colleagues, even introducing her to the one that got away – good old Maria. _

_ She had rejected him years ago, and although in his bitterness he had secretly injected her with a low-level version of Extremis to save for later, he had gotten over it and was happy for her, having married Howard Stark. It did not bother him that he basically reported to the husband of the woman he had desired. She had even brought her son into the tower last month to show off, and of course everyone had wanted to meet the little two-month-old heir of Stark International. Killian had envisioned bringing little Virginia in to work the next time Maria brought Tony around; it would have been interesting to show them off to one another and compare. _

_ But, all of that meant nothing now. He would have to start again. The whole process he would need to do, yet again. And that meant he would need another specimen. It seemed that young Jill's time in his life was over. It was a bit disappointing that it needed to be done, and to one so young. The only reasons why he had gotten involved with a teenaged girl six years younger than he physically was – and claimed himself to be on paper – was in the hope that a younger woman could carry an Extremis child to term, and survive herself as well. Maybe he would try with another teenager afterward, but for Jill Hayes, it was time to sever the connection._

_ That afternoon, he went to the hospital, not bothering to hide his presence this time, and went to Jill's room to check up on her. He closed the door so that the two could be alone, sat down next to her bed, and proceeded to have a talk with her. As he did so, he switched on a small device in his pocket that emitted a signal meant to influence the version of Extremis in Jill's body; specifically to the point of heightening certain emotions and susceptibility to suggestion._

_ He told her how what they had was not going to work long-term, and that the time had come for them to split up. He recommended that she go back to living with her mother, whom had kicked her out after finding out she had become involved with an adult man, and he would help her move out of his place, where he had allowed her to stay ever since. He confessed that he did not think either of them could responsibly take care of a baby at this point in their lives, and that she should give their daughter up for adoption. He advised that it would be best for their child to have a fresh start, and that she should sign an agreement with the adoption agency that whoever chose to adopt the girl could legally change her name, with a recommendation that it should be done._

_ Jill had listened to all of this, and had slowly agreed with everything he said, thanks to the influence he was putting her under. She expressed great sadness, but maintained her composure. He then took his leave of her, knowing that the effects of the emotional changes would slowly grow to the breaking point over time, subtly removing her from the equation and erasing the only tie between the baby and himself. _

_ The following day, Jill requested to speak with a representative of an adoption agency, to whom she expressed her concerns of not being a responsible parent, young as she was, and how she wanted to give her baby up. She signed a form to allow the legal change of the baby's name once prospective parents were found and signed their names as well; her presence at the time of their signing would not be needed for it to be legitimate. When she made it clear that she would not be taking the baby home with her upon her release, the agency made the arrangements to take the infant into their care immediately._

_ After she was released, Killian stayed true to his word and helped the girl pack. The redhead was quiet, morose, on the verge of tears the whole time, but did not say anything to indicate that she resented him for her situation. He had truly convinced her that this was for the best, and she had been told that the sadness she felt was something commonly felt by mothers after giving birth. Although convinced that it was the right thing to do, giving up her child had only heightened the guilt and emptiness that she felt._

_ Once she had moved back with her mother, Killian ceased all communication with Jill, but still kept tabs on her from afar. He knew that as the weeks rolled by, she would soon succumb to his machinations, and he kept watch for when it would happen. That day finally came four months later, six days after she had turned sixteen years old. A brief news report one evening revealed that Jill Hayes, a distraught girl fighting with a severe case of post-partum depression, had committed suicide by taking her mother's pistol and shooting herself in the head._

_ Killian had given her a moment of silence as a way of paying his respects, and then put the whole thing behind him. He had also been keeping tabs on the orphanage where his daughter had been taken, wanting to know when that particular thread was severed as well. Two months after Jill's death, he learned that a couple had been selected, a background check cleared, and that the baby had been successfully adopted. He had thought at first about finding out who had taken her, but decided against it. What would be the point? He had made sure the girl was given up so that he would cut the connection without having to raise suspicions of both a healthy mother and daughter dying and questions being asked that would lead to him._

_ In the end, Aldrich Killian decided to just let it go, convinced that he would never see or hear from, or about, his biological daughter again._

_ Destiny, however, had other plans for him._

* * *

**A/N:** Raise your hand if you liked the reunion of the family? FINALLY! Now, raise your hand if you're playing Pokemon Go? And now, raise your hand if you worked for 46 hours straight to meet a deadline? Wondering why I haven't updated this story? My hand is still raised after asking these three questions ;) I can't blame Pokemon Go, though; half the time, the servers are down. Hope you like it! We are now all caught up and in the final stretch! No more flashbacks from now on!


	16. Chapter 15

**Guest Review Responses**

**Iron kid: Keep up the great work u doing **– Thank you so much! I know it's taken me forever to wrap this up, but it's almost done! You keep me honest, Iron kid!

**A/N: **You know the bad thing about fight scenes? WRITING THEM. I always tell myself I will never ever put myself in a position where I have to write fight scenes, and yet… SIGH. Anyway, here's the next chapter. The next two are halfway done, and the last three are already written. Hope you like this one! Choppy fight scenes galore :(

**BTW:** Congratulations for having caught up, Spicy Iron! This chapter is for you and for our new reader: Mark50 ^_^

Thank you for staying tuned, my Faithful Readers! Take out the tissue boxes for this one.

* * *

**Chapter 15**

She tried to stop her hands from shaking and her mind from wandering, thinking about what she should have done, or what she should have said. She tried to ignore the pain in her right calf, and the blood slipping down her left arm. She even tried to pretend she did _not_ know that one or two of her ribs were cracked. She tried to focus on the task before her – _only_ on the task before her. She tried to make herself believe she could not hear the sounds of Doombots searching for her. She tried to imagine that she was not at Doom's castle, but at the beach. _A_ beach. _Whatever_ beach. _Any_ beach would have done, actually, as long as it was far, far, _far_ away from here.

_425… sequence initiated… I hope Pepper uses the syringe… 145… confirm… she has to… 547… Tony will die…_

Just as almost everything that had been part of their plans, she had rehearsed this task a million times. It had taken her no more than five minutes during trials, but she knew that she had been standing here, by the _Earth Mover_, a _lot _longer than five minutes. On none of those trial occasions, however, had she been in pain, bleeding, anxious, scared, and on the verge of tears.

_The nanobots… Mom… Extremis… 112… dizzy… latitude… countdown… 873… Tony… Oh, Tony…_

She violently shook her head to refocus her thoughts.

"Just one more thing… just one more command…"

_BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!_

Finally. She was done.

She synched her wristwatch with the countdown of the _Earth Mover_ and then took a step back. The device was alive and ticking, working as expected, and waiting to explode. It was rather ironic, for a man who hated weapons, to create something that was going to obliterate an entire piece of land. She knew what this invention of his could do. She knew of the massive damage it was going to cause; which was one of the many reasons why Tony was better off dead than at the mercy of Victor von Doom.

She spared the machine one final glance, sighed loudly, and then turned around, picking up her pace until it reached a light jog. She needed to find Tony now. She needed to catch up with him. She needed his help to make it back to Doom's main chamber so she could ensure her personal mission was completed in the way it was supposed to go. They had to distract Doctor Doom long enough to give Pepper and James a chance to do their job. They needed to stall the fight long enough for the rest of the cavalry to arrive.

Maya stopped when she reached a fork in the road, and then looked left and right, trying her best to remember which way to go. The sounds of battle were reaching as far down as the basement, dust particles falling from the ceiling with every muffled boom she could hear. If everything was still going according to plan, the group would soon make it to Doom's location, and the _real _battle would then begin.

And once the actual battle against Doom started, everyone would be on borrowed time.

_Don't think about it_, Maya shook her head before she began running towards her left. _Don't think about what you can't change._

She reached the end of the hall, arrived at the bottom of the staircase she had been searching for, and then wasted no time going up. Every now and then, she had to force herself to stop to rest for a few seconds when her ribs complained about the added stress. She was overexerting herself; pushing her body to extremes she knew she was not accustomed to, which required her to take in more oxygen than usual. The sudden expansion of her lungs made her ribcage bitch about the added strain, her right leg wobble, and her left arm pulse in ache.

_Just a little longer_, she told herself about her next destination. _Just a few more steps and turns and–_

"Maya!"

"Tony!"

"Hurry up!"

She winced as she hobbled up the remaining stairs to join the inventor's current location at the top. The genius did not even notice that she had needed help, or that she was in pain, until she was standing in front of him, hyperventilating and wincing, and his eyes landed on her torn and bloodied clothes.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

"Doombots attacked us. Wall almost fell on me."

"Doombots attacked you? You mean… Pepper and Howie – are they?"

"They're fine," Maya assured him, "I think."

Tony pursed his lips, thought about yelling at her for not knowing if his family was alright, but then decided against it. If the robots had attacked the three of them, and if Maya was still alive to tell the story, that meant that Pepper and Howie had to be OK. Pepper was suited up and his son could regrow limbs. They just had to be unharmed.

"Whatever," he flared his nostrils and turned on his heels. "Let's just get ourselves to his chamber."

"OK," Maya replied and bit down on her tongue when he started running towards the end of the hall and her pain increased due to the sprint.

"The substations are rigged," he told her, his eyes and ears on high alert. "They're ready to blow."

"So is the second _Earth Mover_," she inhaled deeply.

"Good. Now all we have to do is – _SHIT_!"

"AH!"

Her face was on the ground before she realized what had happened. She was lucky her nose had not broken on impact with how hard Tony had pushed her to lay flat on her stomach. She instinctively covered her head with her arms and closed her eyes, feeling the heat of firepower being exchanged above her until it suddenly stopped to make way for Iron Man's disguised voice.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll live," she breathed and slowly turned so that she was now on her back. The change in position allowed her to make sense of what had just taken place, and of why Tony had all but shoved her face onto the hard ground without warning. She was visibly shocked to see half of another army of Doombots heading their way, but she was even more concerned about the direction the other half was taking – _away_ from them.

The robots were still attacking them, or at least trying to, but Tony had put up a shield to keep the attempts at bay.

"Are they going where I think they're going?" Tony asked with deep concern as he helped Maya stand up.

"I think so," Maya wiped blood from her lip, a hint of worry in her voice.

"We can't let them," Tony growled, his eyes narrowed at seeing the robots speed their way in the direction of the castle's basement. "They'll catch up to Pepper and Howie. They'll kill them before they get to the Power Core Room. We _have_ to do something!"

"We can try, but we can't stop all of them, Tony. There's too many of them. And I'm sure there's more on the way."

"I can slow them down," Iron Man's suit began lighting up as all its weapons started to come out of their hideouts, showing how the billionaire was getting ready to go all-offense on the robots before them. "I'll buy Pepper some time. But I'll need to take down this shield to do that."

"I know," Maya gulped. "What do you want me to do?"

"When I tell you to: I need you to _run_."

"What?" the brunette had not been expecting that reply. "Run?"

"Yes. I can either fight them or protect you. I can't do both. I can put up a shield for you, but I need all the power I can get to stop them. If you stay here, you'll just get in my way."

"Tony, you can't take on an entire army of robots! They'll take you in to Doom! He'll control you! He'll–"

"You're gonna run," Tony said, his eyes focused on the incoming arm. "You're going to run as fast as you can, go to Doom's main chamber, and tell everyone else to keep going. Whether I'm there or not."

"But, Tony," Maya shook her head. "I'm supposed to stay with you. I'm supposed to make sure I disable Extremis in you if Doom reactivates it and tries to control you. You have to come with me upstairs."

"And my family is supposed to shut down Doom's main power source. They can't do that if I go with you."

"But–"

"Get ready to run. Stop wasting our time."

Maya looked at her feet, the finality of his words making this moment with him feel as if it would be their last. Nonetheless, she knew that Tony was right. They could not let the robots reach Pepper and James, and there was not much she could to help the hero do his job.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to distract them with a minor EMP bomb. They won't be down for long, at least not all of them, but I can't use my entire suit's power. I still need it to work. I'll take the shield down, attack them, and then you'll run. Got it?"

"Yeah," she licked her lips. "I got it."

"Get ready."

"Wait!"

"What?" Tony snapped, his faceplate coming down to make sure the woman could see his irritation on his face.

"Tony, I…" she exhaled. "I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant to hurt you. Or Pepper. Or anyone. I… even after all these years… and even knowing that I have no chance at all with you, ever… I… I just want you to know that I still love you."

Tony eyed her from the corner of his left eye for an instant, knowing exactly why she had just made such a pointless confession to him at a moment like this. He could not be bothered with it right now, however. There were more important things to handle at the moment – bigger fish to fry. But he could not help to feel the slightest pang of guilt at being unable to return the sentiment. He knew what it was to love someone and not be loved back – he knew that _too _well.

But he also knew what this woman had done to ruin his life – whether it had been voluntary on her part or not. Just as it was the case with Whitney Stane, he knew he would never _ever_ completely forgive what Maya Hansen had done to the woman he loved and to his son. No amount of apologies would ever make him forget that part of the reason he was here right now, fighting for his and his loved ones' lives, was because the botanist had aided a mad scientist in his plans for revenge against him.

"On 3," Tony said before he returned his attention to the army and closed his faceplate.

"1."

He began charging the EMP bomb and Maya got ready for her mad dash.

"2."

The shield began flickering, signaling it was about to disappear.

"3!"

Against her will, as everything in her life appeared to be since Killian had gotten her involved in Doctor Doom's plans, Maya Hansen ran away from Tony Stark, not once looking back.

xxxXXXxxx

After what had felt like forever, Rescue and her son finally arrived at what appeared to be nothing but a dead-end portion of the maniac's castle. She was almost certain that they had probably lost their way at some point while trying to evade the Doombots that kept popping out of nowhere – sometimes literally from the floors and walls. Yet, after much running around, sudden stops and sharp turning, her son gave her the signal that they were exactly where they were supposed to be.

"Is this the playroom, Jimmy?"

"Uh-huh!" the little boy replied before he wiggled in his mother's embrace to let her know that it was time to return him to the ground. The ginger hesitated for a second, fearing what could happen to the toddler while he was not in her protective arms. However, given what they were here to do – and knowing that time was not on their side, Pepper complied with the child's silent request and placed his feet on the ground.

As soon as the boy was on his own, he got to work. He began pressing random spots among the bricks on the wall, almost dancing his way from one spot to the next. Pepper watched him in awe, wondering how many times her son had done this before – and why he had even been _allowed_ to be out on his own in such a dangerous place. If she had not known any better, and if she did not know of his abilities, she would have thought him to simply be playing a silly game to amuse himself; one that had no rhyme or reason to it because, as a child, it did not need to have either. Yet, when the little boy suddenly stopped his movements and then took a step back, his eyes sparkling as if he was about to uncover a never-ending supply of cookies, Pepper understood he was more than just aware of what he had done.

The entire wall began flickering off and on, thinning out, and then disappeared from sight until it revealed a hidden tunnel behind it. Rescue analyzed the scene with her HUD, and it was quickly revealed to her that the wall was not even a wall – it was a hologram; a much more advanced version of the hovering computer screens back at the now vaporized Makluan Temple.

And her son had just unlocked the combination for it as if it was merely child's play.

"Go?" James Stark patted his mother's leg with one hand and pointed towards the brightly lit tunnel with the other. "Go, Mama?"

"Yes," Pepper nodded. She then bent down and tried to pick up her son, but the little boy took a step back and shook her head.

"No. I go. Mama go."

"You mean I follow you?"

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

"Are you sure?"

"Yup," he smiled. This new word his mother had taught him sounded so funny to him.

"OK."

The child's eyes suddenly turned serious as he stood in front of his mother, and Pepper could not help but see a striking resemblance to her husband in her son. He looked left and right, back and forth, grabbed Pepper's hand in his, and then pulled him with her. They took no more than five steps into the tunnel before he halted. He looked over his shoulder, towards the fake wall behind them, and became eerily still for about thirty seconds. He said nothing at all; he did not even look at his mother. He just stood there, unmoving, making the redhead worry even more than she already was.

"What's wrong, Jimmy?"

"No," the boy replied, hoping his mother understood this step was part of the game to get to the playroom. He had learned, the hard way, that if one kept walking past their current threshold before the wall disappeared, one of the many traps would be set off. He had lost a couple of hands and feet to that before.

"Jim–"

"No," he said again, this time with a furrowed brow, and Pepper was taken aback.

_OK_, she narrowed her eyes behind her faceplate. _What is going on?_

As they continued to wait, Rescue began analyzing their surroundings both with her armor and with her innate abilities. She could not detect any other life forms near them, and the _SOS_ in her armor could not detect any traps either; something she found rather odd. Then again, her armor had not even detected the presence of her son in the room he had been found in, that this portion of the wall was a fake, or that another room was right behind the holographic wall, making her uneasy as to what else the doctor was hiding from them in plain sight in his maze of a home.

She was in the home of Victor von Doom, after all; a prodigy in his own right. He was resourceful, clever and ambitious, to say the least. He was cunning, methodical and powerful. He had one of the most promising scientific minds of all of time – no matter how insane he actually was. He had everything to gain and nothing to lose in this war. He was _the _worst person to have as an enemy in the entire world.

Worst of it all, however, was the fact that he was smart; _extremely_ smart. Perhaps even _smarter_ than Tony Stark himself.

And he was using that intelligence to exterminate all who defied him in his quest to conquer the world.

When thirty more seconds with no movement went by, she became very tempted to just keep walking, consequences be damned, as time was of the essence. Nevertheless, she forced herself to keep that desire at bay. _She _was not the one with_ all_ the updated information to be making decisions here, and she was very cognizant of this fact. Her son had _lived_ here for a very long time. _He_ had been in this room several times; more than anyone else in this entire castle, save for Doom, could say about themselves. Even if he was practically brand new to this world, he still had much more experience at this task than she did. He knew _how_ the system worked. Better yet: he knew how to _cheat_ the system, too.

Pepper gnawed her bottom lip at the thought. She was not sure if she should have been happy or angry that her son knew what to do next in such a horrible place. It was appalling to her that he knew how to navigate the trap-infested room. She had been here only for a few minutes, and she already wanted out of this building of pain. The air was stale, humid and it reeked of death. The halls were dark and unwelcoming. The entire atmosphere in Castle Doom was one that would surely have negative long-term repercussions on anyone who was here for a considerable amount of time. She did not want her son to be _that_ person. She would much rather_ be_ that person herself.

"Jimmy, what are we waiting for?"

No sooner than the words left her lips, the wall behind them started to reappear. Then, as soon as they were hidden from view by the now fully erected fake wall, the tunnel that was before them changed shape.

It was no longer an empty, almost-inviting bright hall.

It was now a partly dark, barely welcoming tunnel of death – one in which the floor was littered with many child-sized, mutilated rotting limbs.

_Her_ son's rotting limbs.

_No_, Pepper swallowed hard.

She was definitely NOT liking this at all.

xxxXXXxxx

They did not want to look like a bunch of pansies but, at this point in time, they just had to _run_.

They had been battling since they had set foot near the borders of the capital city of Latveria; they were starting to grow tired and their ammo was starting to run low. Doombots and other traps kept trying to, at the very least, slow them down before reaching Doctor Doom. Strength in numbers was their thing; but strength could only work wonders for so long. If they kept this up, if they kept stopping to fight whatever got in their way, by the time they reached their main target, they would have less than no chance to scratch the surface of the monarch's metal suit.

"Evasive maneuvers, everyone!" Nick Fury yelled over the sounds of melee around him. "Go, go, go!"

Black Widow in Rescue's armor, Hawkeye in Iron Man's, Living Laser, Happy Hogan in the Hulk Buster armor, War Machine, Mandarin, Jean Grey, and Rogue all took to the air to avoid the swarms of robots and bulk of traps, sparsely attacking ones that they could see would prove an obstacle for their friends on the ground. Fury, Jarvis, Cyclops, Maria Hill, Beast, Whitney, Gambit and T'Challa sped up towards the next metal door. Iceman surfed his way towards it, as well. Hulk made long jumps to get ahead, and Kurt appeared and disappeared his way to everyone's destination.

One way or another, they _had_ to reach Doom's throne room _now_.

Avoiding the bots was more difficult than fighting them, but there was no other way around it anymore. If they wanted to have enough firepower to distract Doom for a little while longer to give Pepper and James Stark a chance to do their job, they had to make sure they had something to throw at the doctor – even if that something ended up being their shoes and nothing else.

"This is not going to work," Jean Grey said. "We're not moving fast enough."

"Are the others here?" Hill asked from her position on the ground.

"Almost," Jean replied, her telepathic connection with the Professor still very much present.

"I'm gonna say we should give you a lift," War Machine added before he dove towards the ground and picked up Maria Hill.

"Sounds like a good idea," Happy said and mimicked War Machine's move with Nick Fury.

"It really does," Rogue nodded and picked Gambit from the ground.

As if rehearsed, each one of the remaining flying members of the team held onto one of the members on the ground. Within seconds of War Machine starting the trend, Jarvis had been picked up by Living Laser; Cyclops by Jean Grey; Whitney Stane by Black Widow in Rescue's armor; T'Challa by Hawkeye in Iron Man's suit; Beast by Mandarin; and Iceman, Hulk and Nightcrawler continued on their paths.

They kept at it for almost a minute, easily going around the robots' attempts at stopping them, until a female voice made them stop in their tracks.

"Hey! HEY! HELLO?! STOP! Don't leave me behind!"

After a light chuckle from Bobby Drake, Maya Hansen joined him on his path of ice.

Finally, the upper team was complete.

Or as complete as they could be until Tony Stark and Pepper Potts joined up.

And when all of the Iron Man's suits detected the targeting and incoming of warheads aimed at Castle Doom, the inventor and the redhead's presences could not take place soon enough.

xxxXXXxxx

"Is he crazy?" Betty Ross' hands slammed against the front panel of the main computer in the control room of Muir Island's underground facility. "Did he just seriously aim all those warheads at his own castle?! He's still inside!"

"Sounds about right for that nutcase," Dr. Ross sighed, arms crossed.

"I'm afraid you're correct," Professor Xavier nodded. "But Tony accounted for this."

"He did? How?"

"I guess it takes a genius to think like one," Charles Xavier replied to Betty.

"So, what's the plan? How are we going to stop those warheads from hitting Castle Doom?" Dr. Ross asked.

"An old friend of mine is going to help us with that."

xxxXXXxxx

He was not one to join any cause that helped the human race prosper, and he was not one to stop an attempt to eradicate all normal humans to clean the Earth. Yet, he was also not one to idly watch when someone threatened the mutants of the world. Doctor Doom had already killed many of his brothers and sisters, without good reason or cause, and he was not going to let the maniac continue his indiscriminate wave of murder. Whether he liked it or not, joining the resistance served his purposes for now; no matter how long he knew he would hear about this from Charles Xavier. Probably until the day one of them finally died.

"I am in position, Charles," Magneto said from the sky into the microphone attached to his helmet, his arms extended to the sides as he looked down upon Castle Doom.

_"The warheads are within range. Can you stop them?"_

"Do you really have to ask?"

After nothing but a smirk on his part, everything with a hint of metal in its composition suddenly bowed to the will of the _Master of Magnetism_.

xxxXXXxxx

Without her son's help, she would have _never_ made it this far.

And without Extremis in him, he would have _never_ survived this alone.

"Wait," the little boy said with too much confidence for a toddler when they reached the next obstacle. He was picking up new words like a sponge.

"OK."

Pepper did as told, still trailing closely behind her son, holding onto her breath as she hung on for the next horrible trap to try to kill them. So far, they had encountered about twenty different ways to die; with the next one somehow managing to be worse than the previous one. Sometimes, the little boy kept the trap from being activated at all. Sometimes, he got them ahead of it before it deployed behind them. Sometimes, he actually let it happen in front of them, purposefully triggering it from a safe distance away from their whereabouts.

The complexity Maya Hansen had stated this room held was extremely understated. There was no chance any of them could have made it this far into it without the spot-on guidance of James Stark, despite his young age. If he was this clever and observant now, with the little guidance and help he had been given in these past few months, she could not even begin to predict how much smarter than Tony he could possibly become with the proper support and time.

So many possibilities for her son. So little time.

_Time._ _I wonder how everyone else is doing right now_.

Pepper's hands turned into fists, slow seconds ticking by. Her suit had notified her that warheads were within range, but signs of destruction were yet to ensue. Seeing as the two of them were still in one piece, and considering the rather large magnetic anomaly she was detecting in the air, she hoped that the delay in being turned into microscopic cinders was due to Magneto's intervention, and not because they were way too deep into the castle to be affected by such a major attack.

And, if Magneto _was_ here, then that meant that the plan was still very much going according to what Tony had predicted it to be.

_ Tony._

Pepper's lost gaze landed on her right _super-pocket_, where the syringe Maya Hansen had given her to use on her husband was being kept. She still had not decided whether or not she would use it on him, if the time came. However, the more she thought about it, and the more she saw her son work so hard to get her to the center of the playroom – just like Tony had instructed him to do – the more she wanted to find another way to save the father of her little boy.

"Mama, no!"

"What?"

It happened in less than a second; quicker than the blink of an eye. She had been too distracted with her thoughts, and her reflexes too slow, to do anything other than watch as the next trap came straight towards her. Her eyes widened at seeing the irradiated laser seeking its next target, stopping only when it finally found it.

But it had not been her.

"Jimmy, NO!"

The color drained from her face. Her heart dropped to the ground. Her legs gave up under her. And her faceplate pulled back.

"Baby… I'm sorry… no…"

"Crap," the little boy mumbled with a tone of annoyance, much to his mother's surprise; his eyes glaring at the detached limbs by his feet.

"Jimmy," Pepper held onto the stumps that were now his mutilated arms, blood dripping from his elbows. "Oh, my God! My baby!"

As if suddenly remembering that his mother was watching, the child's pout turned into a wide smile. He could sense that she was extremely upset, but he knew that she would be very happy in about a second or so.

Just as he expected it to happen, the familiar tingle began running down his arms.

"Look, Mama! Look!"

The sight of it would have made her cringe if she had not been too shocked to fully react.

Inch-by-inch, cell-by-cell, James Howard Stark's limbs began to grow back.

The ginger was not able to tell what was regenerating faster: the skin, the muscle or the bones. In tandem and at incredible speeds, all three major sections of his arms protruded out of his elbows, the new parts of his skin red and glowing, until every single part of what had been chopped off by the laser was back into place, free of injury. Once it was over, James wiggled his little fingers, waved his arms, and then giggled as if he had just been tickled tenderly.

"I OK, Mama," he patted what he could of her cheeks with his hands, his eyes sparkling with self-accomplishment. "No cry."

"J-James…"

"No cry."

xxxXXXxxx

And all of a sudden, the bots became as still as rocks.

"Magneto's here!" Cyclops stated. "I never thought I'd say this about him: but it's about time!"

"There's the last door!" Iceman pointed towards it and increased the speed of his _surfing_ on his bridge of ice.

"Blow it up!" Hill ordered to no one in particular, which resulted in everyone taking a shot at said door with whatever weapon they had in hand. Within seconds, the last barrier between them and the mad doctor evaporated, leaving them with free-range to step inside Doom's throne room.

So they did.

His main chamber; his most important quarters – the center of all evil in the entire country… they had _finally_ made it through. In one piece, at that.

Once inside, the team had expected to be immediately faced with yet another army of _plastic_ robots (supposing Doom having anticipated Magneto's presence), or perhaps an increase in the number of deadly traps. They had expected for the Doctor himself to attack them directly as soon as their faces showed up; to perhaps even open the ground beneath them and send them to a hidden chamber of torture where they would spend the rest of their days. They had expected to be on the receiving end of all the horrors they knew the man was capable of bestowing upon others…

But what they saw and experienced was nothing like that at all.

What they found, to their surprise and confusion, was a very still, unamused-looking, sitting-on-his-throne-as-if-their-presence-was-a-casual-visit, Victor von Doom.

Silence filled the room. Anxiety levels rose. And no one dared to move a muscle or to make a noise until the gaping hole behind them that had once been a blasted door was suddenly filled by a hidden, thick metal wall that appeared from underneath, sealing them inside, with nowhere to go but towards _him_.

This was it. The end of the yellow brick road. They were now standing before the man they had come to stop: Doctor Doom.

"I've been expecting you."

"Really?" Happy Hogan rolled his eyes behind his helmet. "Could you have used a _more_ predictable line? I thought you were supposed to be very smart, or something like that."

Doom's immediate response was to rise from his throne; an action that made everyone else in the room tense up.

"Now what?" Happy asked War Machine via the internal communication system of the suits, knowing that his partner-in-crime was seeing the same intimidating enemy's weaponry system readouts that he was. The energy levels coming from Doom made the _SOS_ light up like Christmas; the complexity of his highly-advanced armor still proved to be too much for the downgraded version of the suit's operating system.

"I don't know," Rhodey replied, memories of his last encounter with Doom returning to his mind.

"Should we – _AHHH_!"

Like the Red Sea, and after a wave of Doom's hands, the members of the counterattack parted to the sides of the room; their bodies becoming painfully pressed against the walls at awkward-looking and uncomfortable-feeling angles and postures, save for Rescue and Iron Man, both of whom had been left standing in the middle of the room.

"Do you think me a fool?" Doom's calm tone of voice was all but soothing as he slowly approached the superhero couple. "Do you really think I am unaware of the impostors beneath those archaic suits?"

"I can't move," Widow said between clenched teeth thorough the suit's internal communication system.

"How is Doom still moving?" Hawkeye replied, wondering if Magneto's power was being deflected from this room somehow.

"I think we're about to find out," Natasha replied, her eyes wide in fear before hers and Hawkeye's faceplates were forced opened.

"I figured it to be you two," Doom looked at the duo up and down. "You were the only other ones missing from the group."

"You knew it was us, the whole time?" Hawkeye groaned.

"It amuses me how you state the obvious as if it were not fact."

"Ugh, come on! Put a sock in it," the archer replied.

"Insolent cretin," Doom's hand circled Natasha's neck. "I will make you regret your rash words."

"Natasha!"

The cracking of bones was louder than the spy's sad whimper before she fell on her back towards the ground. Her head faced her left side. Tears of pain streamed down her face. Her eyes were wide open; and sharp breaths were the only sign that Natasha Romanoff was still alive.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?!" Hawkeye's voice denoted he was now insane with anger.

Instead of humoring the archer with a response, Doom waved a hand over Natasha's body, making the armor open up. It slowly uncovered the woman's form, leaving her exposed to whomever or whatever wanted to finish disposing of her. Once the redhead was out of the protection of the suit, Doom kicked the woman hard in her side, sending her to land face-down close to where the only entrance to the throne room had once been.

"NATASHA!" Barton's voice was strained, but he still managed to convey the same fear everyone else had for their fallen friend. They had not been in Doom's presence for a full minute, and yet he had already managed to invalidate all of the months of hard work and efforts they had invested in getting ready to face him.

Doom, mostly uninterested in the party's emotional turmoil for now, returned his attention to Clint.

"This is the price you pay for thinking you could trick me with your deceptive actions, archer. I will make an example out of each and every one of you. You do not defy the will of Doom."

A second after his words echoed in the room, Doom replicated the task of removing the Iron Man armor from Clint, only to then pull the man's right arm out of its socket, leaving the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to fall to the ground in pain, holding onto his useless limb.

"You son… of a bitch!"

"You are a slow learner, archer," Doom replied before eyeing every person in the room and releasing his conjuring from them, freeing them from his remote grip. "As are all of you. You think you can come to my kingdom and take from me what is rightfully mine? You think you have a chance against my power? You think you have what it takes to keep me from claiming this world as my own? You are nothing but weak, mind-numbing creatures. You are nothing compared to Doom."

"Don't mean we can't try!" Bobby snapped, tired of hearing the egocentric man talk, and then aimed an ice spear towards Doom…

Or so he thought he had.

"What the…"

Bobby Drake twisted his left arm so that its palm was facing up, eyes following the slow transformation of his ice form to his human form, regardless of how much he tried to keep up his mutant front. The trend continued down its path until all that was left of Iceman was his regular-looking self – no trace of his mutated-genes-given abilities present at all.

"I can't… I-I can't… No…"

"It can't be," Beast's voice was merely a whisper, but it was evident in his face that he was also as confused and shocked as Iceman was. Gone from his body was his blue and furry exterior, all now replaced by tan-colored skin he had not seen on himself in years. Almost immediately, due to now being exposed to the elements in nothing but his shorts, he felt his body shiver with cold.

One by one, every mutant in the room became aware of the loss of their unique powers, leaving them with nothing but their own devices to stand their ground. Rogue could almost feel her strength dissipate into thin air. Jean lost her telepathic connection with the outside world. Cyclops carefully removed his visor and opened his eyes to be faced with the almost forgotten sensation of unobstructed visual capacities. Nightcrawler lamented the loss of his instant-travel abilities, and Gambit's playing cards glowed no more.

Even the Living Laser found himself unable to act as his body was depleted of the ability to command his energy and matter at his will; a sense of hopelessness befalling him at the same alarming rate that bathed the scrawny-looking Bruce Banner that a disappeared Hulk had left in his wake.

The shutdown and failing of the armors and all special technology followed suit, forcing Rhodey and Happy to exit their metal cocoons; Mandarin to groan in anger at seeing his rings of power become obsolete; and pushing Whitney to forget about her shapeshifting abilities from now on.

In a matter of seconds, the tables had turned against them – leaving the members of the counterattack feeling like nothing more than living, breathing, disposable and useless paperweights.

"Do you now comprehend the enormity of what you are up against?" Doom slowly turned in place, sparing every single person in the room a glance. "Your efforts were fruitless from the start. And you," the man stopped when he finally faced a jaw-slacked botanist. "_You_ will be the first one to suffer under my wrath."

Catching everyone by surprise, Doom lifted his right arm and aimed it at Maya Hansen. A wave of energy instantly erupted from his gauntlet, traveled towards the brunette, and then blinded everyone but Doom with its brightness on impact. Heads shook and eyes blinked rapidly. Once pupils adjusted and silence fell upon the room once more, gasps then broke the deafening muteness in the chamber.

Standing in front of Maya Hansen was Tony Stark, his right arm extended towards his front, and his hand held a small metallic box. His Iron Man armor was in its backpack form, no doubt also rendered useless by whatever technology was suppressing everyone's powers and weapons. However, whatever was interfering with everyone's abilities and innate advantages was doing nothing to whatever the inventor had just now used to stop Doom's fatal attack towards the brunette.

Doom narrowed his eyes at his number one enemy standing just a few feet from him. Memories of the terrible events he had been force to experience due to the insolent child's actions, years ago, immediately returned to him with an almost crippling vengeance. Here he was, seconds away from becoming the absolute ruler of the world; the Gods of Fate smiling upon his inevitable triumph over those who opposed him, and yet the blue-eyed young man that was the bane of Doctor Doom's existence dared to show his face to make a stand.

Anthony Edward Stark, the youngest billionaire in existence, was just as Doom remembered him: defiant, naïve, unaware of his own limitations, yet sporting an arrogant look on his face.

"So we finally meet again, Iron Man. Or, rather, Tony Stark."

"So we do," Tony returned the glare he was receiving from the madman. "Word of advice, Doom: if you're gonna make it so that your enemies can't use their tech to fight you, also make sure they can't use your own tech against you."

Doom's eyes landed on the device in Tony's hand, understanding what Tony had all but implied. It was clear to him that while roaming around his castle, the genius had found his way to one of Doom's own inventions: a rather powerful force field generator, and had just used it to protect himself and the brunette from the spot-on attack. What better way to stop his advanced weapons than with defensive devices of his own creation. Not that he would ever admit it aloud, or even to himself, but Doom knew that the blue-eyed genius was right. Not to mention that the ruler was not even entirely sure just _where_ Stark had come from just now. It seemed the inventor still had a few tricks to show off.

"Clever attempt, Stark, but futile in the end," Doom began rising from the ground. "Tell me: how do you expect to protect everyone from my power with only _one_ device?"

No sooner than the words left the ruler's lips, hidden compartments in the room gave way to another army of Doombots and the activation of weapons all around. This time, however, the heroes had nothing left to fight back with but their wits and hands.

xxxXXXxxx

"_Erik? Erik! I've lost communication with Jean. What is going on?"_

"Something that I know you feared, Charles," Magneto lowered his arms. "Something is keeping me from reaching their location."

"_Are your powers gone?"_

"No," Magneto shook his head. "But I can't seem to get past the castle's defenses anymore."

"_I don't think it's your powers that are the issue,"_ Howard Stark joined the conversation from his location back in the States. _"I think I know what is going on."_

"What is it?"

"_It's Doom,"_ Howard replied in a defeated tone. _"He's locked everyone in his chamber. He's repelling communication from the outside. He's blocking our signal and your powers."_

"_What are you saying, Howard?" _Professor Xavier asked even though he could read the man's mind to see the answer on his own.

"_They…" _Howard sighed_. "I-I'm afraid… They're on their own."_

xxxXXXxxx

In a matter of seconds, absolute chaos had ensued.

The main chamber in Castle Doom quickly became a scene of struggle between life and death, all induced and led by Victor von Doom. Doombots attacked from all sides. Laser guns and automated weapons targeted anything that moved – friendly or otherwise. Sounds of firepower and scuffling bounced off the walls. Bullets ricocheted without aim, and no one could make heads or tails of what was unfolding around them. Sometimes the punches landed on the robots; but most hits were landing on the resistance team.

_Damn you_, Tony growled, his eyes fixed on the flying form of the ruler of Latveria while he admired his work. _You're gonna pay for this!_

The inventor reluctantly pulled his gaze away from his enemy to find his friends in the sea of commotion before him. He could see that most of them where managing to defend themselves with whatever they had at hand; resorting to fighting in groups when need be. The genius knew that they could hang on for a little while longer without their powers and weapons, but that none of them would make it if he did not find a way to stop whatever it was that was keeping everyone from relying on the abilities that allowed them to be who they were.

Above all, however, what concerned Tony the most right now, was that his little stunt of having Natasha and Clint pose as Rescue and Iron Man for the sake of distraction had placed them in the number one spot for targets on Doom's list. This fact undoubtedly made the archer and the spy become top priority on Tony's _Who_ _Needs Help Right Fucking Now_ list.

"Hawkeye!" Tony ran towards the archer in the middle of the chamber and kneeled before him, Maya Hansen following behind. "Barton? Barton, are you OK?"

"Natasha," Clint lamented, his eyes on the ground; the injury of his arm being inconsequential to him at the moment while Maya searched for signs of worse wounds. "Tony, I-I think she's dead."

"We're gonna help her," the inventor said with determination. "Did you hear me, Clint? We're gonna help her. But I need you to get it together, OK?"

"Tony, his arm…" Maya's voice trailed, her eyes aimed in the direction where Agent Romanoff remained unmoving on the floor while Doombots slowly approached her form.

"I know," Tony replied before he stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs towards a fighting Mandarin. "Gene! GENE! Put his shoulder back into place!"

"Be right there," Gene replied before he roundhouse-kicked a robot and then ran towards where Barton kneeled on the floor.

"Stay with them," Tony ordered the botanist while he handed her the device he had used to protect her from the attack. "Make sure Gene has the time to fix his arm."

"OK," Maya nodded gulped. "But what about you?"

"I'll be fine," the inventor replied before stood up and sped his way towards Natasha Romanoff.

"This is going to hurt," Gene warned Barton as he got into position, but the older man was in a state of complete shock; repeating over and over again that his redhead was gone. Knowing that nothing but seeing alive the woman he loved would do for the archer, Gene did not even bother to warn Clint of the incoming wave of pain.

"AARRGHH!" Barton clenched his eyes shut. "_FUCK YOU, KHAN_!"

"You're welcome," Gene replied as he helped the agent stand up and then turned around in place to begin fighting Doombots once more.

xxxXXXxxx

"AIYAH!"

Using nothing but speed, martial arts training, and his armor backpack as a blunt-force weapon, Tony began making his way to Agent Romanoff. Some Doombots had realized that the poor woman was completely helpless, and they were now attempting to finish the job that Doom had started.

"Leave her alone!"

Tony tightly grabbed his backpack by the straps, flung it from him above his head, and then decapitated a robot with it. He was happy to see that no civilian was inside, so he repeated the action with two more robots nearby.

"Natasha," Tony yelled as loud as he could before he ducked out of the way of an incoming attack. "Natasha! Can you hear me?"

Unfortunately for him, she did not respond.

_Shit!_

The genius looked over his shoulder and in the direction he had just come from, only to see that the archer was already up, his arm fixed for now, and viciously fighting his way towards Romanoff's location. Seeing the raging resolve in Clint Barton's face made Tony's own will increase, pushing him to be much more forceful with his attacks.

_Please, don't be dead. Please, don't be dead. Please, don't be dead!_

After tricking two robots into destroying each other, Tony was finally able to reach the redheaded agent. He kneeled before her, just as he had done for Barton, and then called her name. When the ginger did not respond in any visible manner, Tony's fingers landed on her neck, held his breath for a second, and then sighed in relief when he felt her strong pulse.

"Come on, Natasha," Tony began examining her face and neck. "Say something, come on!"

Was she paralyzed? In extreme pain? Or was she simply taking an involuntary stroll in that dimension Doom had once sent Iron Man to. She did not appear to be bleeding, internally or otherwise. And even though her neck was red and bruised, it did not appear to be broken either. He just could not find a reason for her to be as still as she was, which kept him from figuring out how he could even begin to help her.

He inwardly cursed his luck at not being able to use his suit. He knew that if he had been able to do so, he would have already known what was wrong with her. Then again, nothing was easy for anyone right now. He just had to do what everyone else was doing at the moment: make do with what he had.

"Can you hear me?" the inventor repeated his question, hoping the diminished distance did the trick for her. "Can you do anything at all?"

Tony brushed off some of her damp hair from her face, and he was then taken aback when the woman suddenly blinked twice at him.

"Natasha? Natasha! Was… was that a: _yes_?" Tony's eyes focused on hers. "Blink twice again if that was a _yes_."

To his pleasant surprise, she blinked twice once more.

"Oh, thank God!" Tony breathed. "Is your neck in pain?"

Natasha blinked twice for a third time.

"I don't think it's broken," the genius told her. "Does it feel broken to you?"

This time, the agent blinked only once.

"OK. Does anything else feel broken?"

Another single blink was her response.

"I'm going to move you, then. If I hurt you, blink twice again, OK? I just need to– UGH!"

In the midst of making sure his teammate still lived, the inventor had forgotten that there was still a battle taking place all around him. Thankfully for him, Clint Barton had just reached their current location to put an exploding arrow on the Doombot that had almost killed the inventor from behind.

"Is she alive?" Barton asked over his shoulder, his back towards Tony and Natasha while he kept the robots at bay.

"She is!" Tony answered, picked up the woman from the floor, and then sat her with her back against the wall. "She can't move, though. But she can hear and understand what we say. Does that hurt, Natasha?"

Black Widow replied with one blink yet again, further confirming for the inventor that whatever ailed the spy was being caused by one of Doom's advanced artifacts. He just had to find out what it was and where it was.

"What do we do now, Tony?" Hawkeye asked, partial relief washing over him at knowing that he had not lost his would-be future wife. "We can't keep this up. And we can't call in for help."

"Keep fighting," Tony said and then stood up after making sure the redhead was as comfortable as she could be for now. "I'll bring someone over to keep her safe while you fight. I need to go find a way to give everyone their powers back, but you stay close to Widow, alright?"

"Don't even have to ask," Barton said before he used his bow to slam a robot's midsection. The metal man stumbled back for an instant, giving Clint enough time to grab one of Natasha's bombs from her belt and then attaching it to the robot's head. Hawkeye then kicked the robot as far as away as he could before he detonated the bomb, taking with it a handful of armored soldiers.

"I won't leave her alone."

"I know," Tony nodded once, knowing exactly how Clint currently felt. If this had been Pepper… if Doom had done this to his wife…

Tony shook his head to clear his thoughts. He did not want to imagine what seeing Pepper like this would do to him.

Back to the matter at hand.

"Maya, get over here!" the inventor called on the botanist, who was currently being protected by Jarvis and Gene Khan. Not wanting to get in the way any longer and instead wanting to be useful, Maya immediately rushed towards Tony, stopping only when she went past his standing location and reached Natasha's body on the ground.

"Is she going to be alright?" Maya held Natasha's hand in both of hers.

"I think so," Tony began. "Listen, stay with her, OK? Turn on the shield, keep it up, and stay inside. Think you can you do that?"

"Yes. Yes, I can do that."

"OK. How much longer do you think Pepper and Howie have left until they reach the center of the playroom?"

"Uhm," Maya eyed her watch. "I don't know when they started."

"What's your best guess?"

"They're halfway there?" Maya shrugged.

"So, fifteen minutes?"

"Give or take."

"Mmhhh. We might not have that long."

Tony stood up from his crouching stance and then took another look at everything around him. He noticed that, by now, no one was fighting alone anymore. His team was now coming together, slowly regrouping themselves at the center of the room. For a second, the blue-eyed man considered picking up Natasha and bringing her and Maya to the middle of the circle the other members were beginning to form, but he decided against it in the end. Being in a circle helped them keep the attack attempts at the front of their bodies only, but it also left their backs exposed to Victor von Doom.

_Speaking of which…_

The inventor narrowed his eyes at the flying doctor, who appeared to be quite bored with the scene. For the life of him, however, Tony could not tell _why_ they were all still alive – why Doom had not killed Natasha when he had had a chance, and why he continued to allow them to live another second. He knew that they were outnumbered, outgunned, and shit out of luck without their weapons and powers. However, the monarch was yet to deliver the final blow.

It would be so easy for Doom right now to wipe their existence from the planet with just one lazy sweep of his hand. Perhaps even by just staring into space. Nevertheless, other than disabling their mutant abilities and technology, Doctor Doom was yet to end them all.

_Why?_ Tony wracked his brain at said thought. _Why hasn't he killed us all? Why hasn't he…_

"Shit," Tony's train of thought was abruptly interrupted by what suddenly caught his eye. "Is that… is that… Oh, shit! That's it! THAT'S IT!"

"Tony?"

"I got it!" Tony spared the brunette one swift look before he began running away from her. "Put up the shield now!"

As soon as the genius was out of range, Maya activated the tiny yet powerful force field around herself and the motionless redhead. Hawkeye stared at the running leader of the group, wondering what had piqued his interest, but he then realized that he did not have much time to dwell on whatever Tony was about to do.

The billionaire almost hit Gene in the back, but he was able to stop himself an inch before slamming against his rival, opting for catching his attention by simply laying a hand on his shoulder instead.

"Gene, look at Doom! Do you see that?"

"See what, Stark?"

"On his belt, Gene! Do you see that?"

The Mandarin alter ego stopped long enough to focus his attention on Doom, just as Tony had instructed. He first noticed that, unlike usual, Doom was indeed wearing a belt over his armor. It took him another second or so to see what Tony was referring to. But once he did, Gene's hands turned into fists.

"Is that it?" Gene pointed towards Doom's position. "Is that what it looked like before you broke it?"

"Yes," Tony nodded. "That's exactly it."

"I guess we have a new target, then?" Gene's smile showed how eager he was to get his powers back.

"You bet your ass we do. Tell everyone to aim towards it with everything they've got. We're all hitting it at the same time."

"Got it."

"What is it, Master Stark?" Edwin asked his former ward as soon as Gene ran away from them and towards the rest of the group to relay the news to everyone.

"The reason we can't use powers, Jarvis," Tony pointed towards a familiar-looking device – a familiar-looking _disruptor_ – on Doom's waist. "That right there. We need to blow it up."

"On your mark, Sir," Jarvis did not have to be told twice before he pointed his gun towards the device at the exact same time that everyone aimed whatever they had towards it.

"On three," Tony began. "One. Two. Three!"

However, rather than the sounds of the disruptor on Doom's belt blowing to pieces, everyone's loud screams filled the room instead.

xxxXXXxxx

Professor Xavier felt as if he had been hit in the face with a cinderblock, but he knew that this was not exactly what had just taken place. He shook his head violently to order his thoughts, took off Cerebro's portable helmet, and then rubbed his face hard with his hands. He could feel the onset of a massive headache, but he did his best not to focus on that right now.

"Something happened," the psychic began, his eyes blinking rapidly to find his center. "I don't know what it was, but it was big. Do we have a reading? Did anything register, Dr. Ross?"

To his shock, silence in the control room was the only response he got.

"Dr. Ross?" Charles faced the doctors, only to find the both of them standing still, their gazes lost.

"Betty?" the Professor insisted and wheeled himself towards the stoic woman, calling her name once more. "Are you alright?"

When neither doctor replied or even attempted to look at him, Charles's left hand extended towards the main panel of the computer before him. He hesitated for an instant, fearing that he knew what he was about to verify, but he still pressed the speaker button for Magneto's helmet earpiece either way.

"Erik, did you feel that?"

The sound of static poured inside the room.

"Erik, do you copy?"

More static followed the Professor's words.

"Erik? Erik, do you hear me?"

Not even an attempt at a reply came from the man at the other end of the line; only the continued sound of static spoke to Charles. As a result, the Professor's eyes drifted towards one of the screens that he had hoped he would not see doing its job. Unfortunately for him, the readouts on the monitor confirmed what he already knew was taking place.

The Mainframe had been turned on.

And it would only be a matter of time before he succumbed to its power, too – just as the rest of the world had already fallen to it just now.

xxxXXXxxx

After the flash of sharp pain that had gone down his neck and spine ended, Tony lifted his head to look Bruce Banner in the eye. It did not take two scientists to know what the sudden tingle at the base of their heads had meant. It was rather obvious for everyone what Doom had just done.

Their window of opportunity was even narrower than before. Yet another impossible obstacle had been placed in their paths. The Mainframe had been turned on – and their chips had been activated as a result. The odds for winning this final battle were being reduced to less than nothing at the speed of light.

"The disruptor," Tony said after clearing his throat, attempting to gulp down the sense of dread that was clogging his windpipe. "We need to disable it. That's our only chance."

xxxXXXxxx

This was it. The final stretch was upon him. He had them all where he wanted them _and_ needed them to be at the moment – well, almost_ all_ of them. He was missing one crucial piece of his plan.

The redheaded woman of Stark's was still nowhere to be seen. _She_ was the only reason he was stalling and dragging this fight longer than what he would have considered wise and efficient. The last step of his master plan required the annoying woman's presence in this chamber. It required her life to be on the line until her last breath. The last trick up his sleeve would not work without her being here. He had to be patient. So very patient. Much more patient than he had already been.

Perhaps, it was time to have some fun of his own. It would not be much longer, anyway, once _she_ showed her face in battle. Besides, the more he mocked the man responsible for his almost-death about everything he had done wrong in this wasted mission of his, the more successful his world-domination plan would feel.

He had said it before to the billionaire's face, and he would say it again before he finally lost his mind forever – prove it to him, this time: Tony Stark knew nothing of pain. Nothing of misery.

But he would know about that and more, _very_ soon.

xxxXXXxxx

Even the Doombots stopped their battling frenzy when Doctor Doom began slowly descending from his position above them. The eyes of his enemies were on him. Acknowledging this, behind his helmet, the doctor smiled. The fear in their eyes fed his ego. His imposing and strong presence made them cower like the insects they were to him. He could have killed them all at the moment – with just a thought, at that. He even _knew_ that they were aware of this fact. He knew they were questioning his motives; his rationale – what they probably and incorrectly saw as mercy on his part – as if their underdeveloped brains could even begin to grasp the high-level inner workings of his prodigal mind.

Fools. All of them. The ones in his castle and the ones outside.

He had mercy for no one. He owed no one an explanation. He owed no one, anything.

But they did. _He_ did. Tony Stark _did_. He owed Doctor Doom his life… and not in a way that meant something so special as death, either.

xxxXXXxxx

As soon as Doctor Doom's feet landed on the ground, it took only one silent look from their leader for everyone on the resistance team (sans Maya Hansen and Black Widow) to jump the madman – at the same time – all with the same goal in mind: destroying the disruptor attached to his belt. The ticking bombs that were the _Earth Movers_ did not matter right now. Pepper's and James' playroom mission did not matter right now. The fact that the Mainframe was powered on did not matter at the moment either. All that made a difference at the moment was that damned disruptor that was taking away the one advantage they had. For better or for worse, everything else unfolding around them was inconsequential at this point in time.

_Do your worst_, the ruler thought with a smirk, looking forward to setting the stage for the last part of his plan.

Gambit was the one that was currently physically closest to Doom's location, so he was the first one to attempt to land a hit. He could not light up his cards, but he could still use his staff. He swung it as hard as he could, aiming for the left side of Doom's head. In tandem, Black Panther extended his claws and prepared to scratch the dog shit out of Doom's metal torso. Fury, Hill, Whitney, Clint, and Jarvis all aimed their guns at different angles on the monarch's head, and everyone else prepared for a chance to snatch away the device they were trying to get.

It was nineteen against one. But the one was worth a million of the nineteen together.

Without much warning, Doom grabbed Gambit's staff and used it to propel the Cajun towards Arthur Parks, Jean Grey and Bruce Banner. The Doctor then groaned when T'Challa's vibranium claws left marks on his suit. The Black Panther followed his initial attack with a series of intricate punches and kicks, which did nothing but enrage the doctor even more. From all of the people trying to one-up him, however, T'Challa was the only one that was worth a few seconds of Doom's time. He humored the Wakandan for a short stretch, exchanged a few heated words with him, but then forced his diplomatic equal into retreating to prevent a fatal wound from ending his life.

The bullets triggered by the S.H.I.E.L.D. members and Jarvis did not even hit their target. Instead, they bounced off his suit and hit Happy, Hank McCoy, Rogue, and Bruce Banner instead. All injured members felt the sting of a bullet for the first time in their lives, which only served in momentarily crippling them and sending them to kiss the ground.

"No!" Tony screamed when he saw his friends cover their new injuries with their hands. Happy had been hit in his right shoulder. Hank McCoy in his left forearm. Rogue was hit in her left kneecap. And Bruce Banner in his right calf. None of the injuries were life-threatening, but they could spiral into life-altering if nothing was done about them soon enough.

Then again, _soon enough_ was not _good enough_.

xxxXXXxxx

"_Cherie_," Gambit was by Rogue's side as soon as he had been able to stand up. She was clenching her jaw in pain, both of her hands on her busted knee. Gambit knew that only a high dose of sedatives would do for the woman right now. Nothing short of killing her would take away the level of pain caused by an injury like the one she had just sustained.

And, for a fleeting moment, Gambit considered being the one to deliver the final blow to her.

What did they have to lose, anyway? The cards were stacked against them already. They were just wasting their time and energy trying to stop a man that could not be stopped. Was this really how it was all going to end for them? Dying for the amusement of the ruler of Latveria? Dying due to injuries caused by misdirected friendly fire?

Was this even worth the trouble at all?

"Rogue… Marie… I…"

Gambit pursed his lips when he realized there was nothing he could say to her that would make the situation better at the moment. Asking if she was alright was insulting. Telling her that she would _be_ alright was even worse. All he could do was hold her in his arms and against his chest; keep her as safe as possible from the threats around them – and hope that the end for all of them came quickly enough.

"Rogue, I love you. Do you know that? Rogue?"

Remi pulled away from her face when she did not reply. At the very least, he had expected her to groan at his untimely confession. She never believed him when she heard him say it, though. But he had hoped that, given the situation, she would finally realize how honest his feelings for her were.

"Rogue? Are you… are you…"

_Dead_, he was going to say, but she was still breathing and blinking. She was just awfully still.

"Rogue? Rogue. Rogue!"

He looked up when he heard Jean Grey scream.

He narrowed his eyes when he saw Scott Summers run to the woman's aid.

But it still took another minute or so to figure out that what was happening to Rogue was happening to Jean as well.

The women were not dead. But their Mainframe-repellent chips were.

xxxXXXxxx

"YAY!"

Pepper Potts would have cheered along with her son if she was as innocent as he was, and if she had not known any better; if she had not been aware that the fight was all but coming to an end. They had finally made it to the center of the playroom. They were now standing in front of the source of all of Doom's power – they could cripple the man's resources in an instant. All she had to do now was disable the damn thing.

Problem was that the core resembled nothing like she had been instructed it would look like – the design had completely changed to where it looked like nothing more than a sphere of obsidian, roughly the size of a beach ball, with a strobe light inside. Problem was: not only did she not have the proper tools for doing her one job in this mission… she also had no idea how to begin disabling it.

xxxXXXxxx

Dividing to conquer was such an accurate description of what Doom had done to his team just now. To his family. To him. To the entire world's population; man or woman, mutant or normal, old or young. Doom had taken the time to examine all of their behaviors, their patterns, and their train of thoughts. He had done so much more meticulously and precisely than the inventor had ever hoped to do so himself. Doctor Doom had had years to prepare for this moment. Tony Stark had had but a couple of months.

"Have you had enough, Iron Man?"

"No," was the genius' immediate response.

Tony used his right hand to wipe the left side of his mouth from the blood the Doctor had just drawn from him with a punch to his face. He was not sure if it was the adrenaline rushing through his veins, or the little of Extremis that was activated within him, but he felt ready to take on the next injury from the man before him.

And perhaps even the next well-placed kick as well.

Simply because, if Doom's full attention was only on him, it was also completely away from any of _them_.

One by one, the majority of the members of his team had become nothing but living and breathing mannequins to the world. The chips were failing rapidly; more so than they had during practice trials, which had left, up to a few seconds ago, only Tony, Gene, Whitney, Rhodey, and T'Challa with the chance to fight. Whoever else that was not under the influence of the Mainframe was protecting a fallen friend, as the Doombots and other weapons were showing no mercy towards the targets that were already in a catatonic state.

To an inexperienced outsider, it would make no sense whatsoever to attack those that could not defend themselves. But Tony knew _why_ Doom's tools and guns were still attacking his mind-controlled friends. It kept those whose chips had not yet failed busy with protecting the ones they loved. It kept anyone who was still able to fight from being able to help _him_.

This was the reason why, at the moment, now that Rhodey's and T'Challa's chips had finally failed, that Whitney and Gene were now tasked with watching over War Machine's and Black Panther's inert backs instead of supporting the leader of the resistance.

Doom walked up to Tony and lifted him from the ground by his neck, pressing his metal grip against the genius' severely damaged skin. Tony tried to kick Doom's anywhere he could manage to do so, but he was not able to aim very well when so little air filled his lungs. His backpack armor still clung to him, as useless as this was. He could still take on more of the beating Doom had been raining upon him. But he was tired of seeing with his own two eyes that he had led his friends and family to their tombs.

He had failed every single one of them, for the very last time. He had known that their collective goal had been almost unattainable from the get-go, but he had still hoped they could have won.

Dying in their homes or dying in the field was still dying in the end. But it was not until now that Tony realized that dying in the field was not more preferable or honorable than he had thought.

Just when Tony felt his body about to give out on him, Doom released some of the pressure on his neck, allowing the inventor to gasp loudly for air. The Doctor then slowly lowered him until he was face-to-face with the hero, locked eyes with him, and then spoke with an amount of malice and contempt that Tony had not once before heard anyone use on him.

"Do you feel it now, Iron Man? Do you feel the suffering and the pain you thought you knew about? Are you ready to bow down to my will? To my every word? Are you ready to watch the ones you love die by your own hand?"

Tony closed his eyes for a moment, taking a brief instant to think about his response. He knew that it did not really matter what he said, Doom's mind was set on extending this torture until his need for revenge was sated – perhaps even longer than that. He had not meant for any of this to happen when he had accidentally sent Doom to Yogthulu's world. He had not once in a million years foreseen the damage that one action could cause. But he also knew it was too late for apologies, especially if they were hollow ones. He did not regret being part of the reason why the ruthless man had gotten a taste of his own medicine at the hands of a supernatural being. He was actually morbidly proud that Doom had been forced to go to such extreme lengths for the inventor to understand the amount of negative effects he was responsible for.

His only regret, nonetheless, was that he had brought the entire world down with him as a result.

"Just like you did for Valeria, you mean?" Tony finally opened his eyes and replied, his personal count of fucks to give being on the negative side. "Is that the kind of pain you're talking about? You would know all about it, wouldn't you, Vic? Killing the woman you loved with your own two hands. Oh, I'm sure you'll make me learn about it… since you're an expert on the subject and all."

Instead of verbally responding to Tony's sarcastic retort, Doom threw him against a wall, raised an invisible barrier around him to keep him from interfering, and then rushed towards James Rhodes.

"RHODEY! NO!"

Gene was in front of Whitney Stane in a second, one of Doom's relic, decorative swords in hand, which he was using to push back the blade Doom had intended to use to pierce Whitney's and Rhodey's hearts. The blonde could barely keep her eyes open, let alone fight Doom on her own. She had been doing a good enough job keeping Rhodey from being injured while in his stoic state, but she stood no chance against the power Doom was yet to unleash on her.

"Mandarin," Doom scoffed. "Your sense of self-righteousness is but a ruse."

"And you're too pretentious for a guy who has to resort to taking away power from others to feel powerful yourself."

Doom responded to Gene's equally mocking retort by attempting to spear him instead, but the Chinese man easily dodged the attack. Time and time again, Gene Khan had proven that his half-Makluan nature only enhanced his abilities – he was a major threat on his own, even without the rings.

Nevertheless, he could not be a major threat for long.

"Gene!" Whitney Stane called out the man's name in utter fear.

The second spear attack went right through the Mandarin's left shoulder, ripping everything in its path on the way in and out. Gene reluctantly kneeled before Doom, his right hand still holding onto his sword, for whatever the action was worth.

With a sweep of his arm, the sword flew away from Gene's grip, leaving him with the tip of Doom's blade drawing blood from his neck.

"Doom! Stop it!" Tony cried from his invisible cell, his fists banging against the see-through walls he could not break. "Let them go!"

Doom, however, paid no mind to Tony's desperate attempt at saving his rival and friend. Victor's mind was made up.

"Your end will be quick, Mandarin. Be grateful to Doom for sparing you from more pain."

Gene closed his eyes, looked away, and then felt his limp body hit the ground with a loud thud.

It took him a second to realize that his chip had finally failed. But its failure affected him only for so long.

xxxXXXxxx

The blade his advanced suit had created retracted without notice; the surprise of it causing him to release Mandarin from his metal grip. He roughly kicked away the man from his feet and then took a step back, his eyes focused on his slowly-becoming-unresponsive right gauntlet and arm. His attention then jumped to his other arm and then towards his chest, as he slowly realized that his entire system was shutting down.

"What… _What_ is the meaning of _this_?!"

He took even more steps away from where he had just been standing, his head shifting left and right to see his Doombots and weapons turning off. The security systems were starting to fail. The myriad of holographic walls and doors were flickering themselves into oblivion. His backup systems were failing to kick in.

He tried to call on the power of his suit, any of it, but all he managed to do was to look like an idiot, flailing his arms and hands for nothing to take place. For a second, he saw the image of Valeria standing by his throne, a disappointed look on her face, and he felt his blood boil.

Had he not been the only one stalling? Had Tony Stark manage to one-up him in the end?

_No_, Doom growled. It just could not be. He had been so close. So, so close. And now…

Now, the familiar sound of electronic humming and mechanical clicking made him look towards his left.

"Just a little gift made especially for you, Doom," Iron Man, the real Iron Man, smiled behind his faceplate. "Courtesy of my wife. I'll tell her you said _thanks_."

Doom's eyes saw red. His fists shook. His field of vision slowly expanded. And it was then that he finally recognized the extent of this new development.

The members of the resistance had begun standing – those that could – and they had begun transforming – those that did. And sooner rather than later, it was apparent to the ruler of Latveria that the odds were now stacked against _him_.

_For now._

xxxXXXxxx

Turning away from the smoking remains of the power core, Pepper placed James in her arms, looked up towards the ceiling of the playroom, and then pointed towards it with her armored hand.

"Can you see what's up there, sweetie?"

"Yes, Mama," the child said with a nod.

"What is it?"

James lips turned upward.

"Dada."

Rescue smirked at the response.

xxxXXXxxx

Powers or no powers, they would not stop him completely. Powers or no powers, they would _not_ take him down.

His suit was still made out of metal, and strikes with it still hurt. He was still physically stronger than half of the dimwits around him, and the other half was still injured or bleeding.

But it did not mater. None of their attempts mattered.

He would just have to hang on as long as needed until the redhead showed up. He would just have to play along with the façade that he was nearing the end of his rope. It would be more than worth it in the end: it would only make the reveal of the ace up his sleeve that much more fulfilling for him.

xxxXXXxxx

She did not want to take her child with her into battle, but there was no other safe place for him right now. Leaving him to wander the halls on his own in the _Castle of Death_ was not the right thing to do either. It was even worse than holding him in one arm while she attacked Doom with the other. Then again, all she really needed to do once they both arrived to Doom's main chamber was find Nightcrawler and hand James over to him. Facing whatever happened after her son was out of the danger zone was the _real_ difficult task.

xxxXXXxxx

It took longer than expected, but the portable backup generator of his suit finally kicked in. And just as he had been waiting for it to follow the attack, Iron Man and his other armored friends were once again rendered obsolete.

Permanently, this time.

The EMP bomb he had just released onto them was sure to leave nothing but fried circuits behind.

"Dammit!" Tony began tapping the spots on his suit that would activate the manual sequence for removing the suit from him; an action that Happy and Rhodey performed as well.

"You are not the only one with a trick up his sleeve, Stark," Doom mocked the inventor as he began to rise in the air again. "And you will now truly learn the power of Doom."

"Really?" the Mandarin asked in his gruff voice. "Let's see what you've really got."

xxxXXXxxx

"Tony, War Machine's down."

"So is the Hulk Buster," Happy slammed his right fist against his left palm. "Just when I was about to return the favor to that asshole, too!"

"We'll get our chance," Tony said, his hands desperately ripping parts off his suit.

"What the hell are you doing, T?" Rhodey asked.

"Gonna build a bomb."

"A bomb?" Happy's eyebrows rose. "Don't we have plenty of those already?"

"Not one of these. Or at least not anymore."

After replying, the inventor then ran towards the War Machine and Hulk Buster armors to continue the cannibalizing of the dead suits, both of his friends bewilderedly following after him.

"What type of bomb are you making?"

"An EMP."

"To get back at Doom?" Rhodey looked left and right. "But the circuits are dead, Tony. All of the suits are fried!"

"Not _all _of them," Tony replied before he gathered the rest of what he needed and ran towards a corner of the room. "We got one more."

"One more? Where?" Happy frowned.

"Pepper's," Tony retorted. "We still have Pepper's armor."

"Pepper's…" Rhodey snapped his fingers in understanding. "So, what do we do, man? Can we help?"

"Yeah," Tony replied, his teeth angrily chewing on a wire to cut it open. "Keep me alive while I build the damn thing."

xxxXXXxxx

The HUD inside his helmet signaled that Rescue's presence was in range. She would be here any second now, and he would finally be able to exact his revenge. His victory was so close, he could almost taste it. He just had to be near the inventor when the woman appeared. The rest would just fall into place, as he had so thoroughly planned.

Today, Tony Stark would do as Victor von Doom said, and the hero would kill everyone that ever cared for him – everyone that he ever loved.

Tomorrow, the entire planet would bow down to the new ruler of the world. Everyone, everywhere, who heard his name, would tremble in fear.

Yes. The pieces of the puzzle were complete.

And all he had had to do to make it happen was to stall.

xxxXXXxxx

"Tony, look out!"

The blue-eyed genius was barely able to duck in time to avoid the death ray that Doom had aimed his way. Rhodey and Happy, however, had not been lucky enough.

"NO!"

Tony abandoned his sad, little science project and ran towards his friends, both of which were out cold, even if they had not been at the direct-hit receiving end of the doctor's attack. He was glad to find a strong pulse on both of them, but it was also clear that they were down for good.

"Tony, run!"

The warning came from Iceman this time, who was trying as best as he could to keep Doom from reaching the inventor. Soon, anyone who was able to slow down the monarch jumped in, powers and punches being thrown at him without pause, but the maniac kept pushing through.

Gene could feel sweat dripping down his face with the effort he was employing in trying to give Tony enough time to get back to this impromptu invention and wrap it up. Cyclops could feel his eyes grow tired as well, the rays that came out of them starting to do so intermittently. Jean Grey was becoming dizzy and was starting to hyperventilate; her mind almost at its breaking point. Even the Hulk, with his once-unstoppable strength drained significantly from several back and forth transformations in the last hour, was struggling to keep the ruler at bay!

No matter how much they pushed, pulled, screamed, punched, or kicked, Doom continued walking towards Tony, slowly gaining ground. Seeing his friends' efforts were quickly becoming for naught, the genius stood up from the floor, device in hand, and began running towards the door that he hoped Pepper would use to get inside. All it would take would be a few seconds to get Pepper out of the suit, take the energy source he needed from Rescue's armor and fit it into the EMP bomb, and then telling Gene to get the fuck out of the room to avoid the possibility of him being affected as well.

All it would take would be for the press of a button to kill Doctor Doom.

Indeed.

Tony Stark was not planning on simply deactivating the man's armor. He was planning on using the armor to electrocute the man inside the suit.

This was the mother of all EMP bombs. This was designed to kill the pilot inside; no matter who it was.

"Release me!" Doom yelled when he saw Tony run away. "Release me _now_!"

Using most of the energy he had left in his suit, Doctor Doom managed to send flying away those who dared to hold him back from reaching his prey. He was done playing games. He was done letting these pests think they ever had the upper-hand. He could no longer afford to waste more of his limited suit's energy on them. He had just enough to give Tony a one-way ticket to the land the doctor himself had spent months in.

The approach of the ruler of Latveria was imminent, yet he was unable to find anything that could have helped him make an escape. He gazed at his friends, all groaning and shaking on the floor, slowly recuperating from Doom's blast. He thought to run towards where Maya Hansen still sat, holding onto a wobbly and recovering Black Widow, and use the force field he had given her, but he then realized it too had been powered down with the destruction of Doom's core, and then had its inner workings destroyed by Doom's EMP bomb.

He was cornered. Alone. Helpless. Without any defense other than a useless EMP bomb in his hands. If Pepper did not show up in the next nanosecond, if she was not able to do something for him, he was going to die.

_No_, Tony narrowed his eyes. _I'm not going to die. Pepper is!_

Because it was true; Maya Hansen had made sure he knew whose life was more useful to Doom. It was not his redhead's – it was his.

_Run_, something in Tony's mind screamed at him. _Get out of here. Run!_

But where? To another corner in the room? Out into the hall? What good would it do to bring Doom with him?

_Maybe Pepper won't be hurt_, he told himself_. Maybe he won't get to them!_

And maybe the clouds in the sky were made of marshmallows and the rainbows of hard candy.

_Think, Stark! Think!_

Running. That was truly all that was left. That was all he could do. There was no choice but running…

But he could still choose _where_ to run off to.

He dropped the device on the ground, hoped that Pepper would be able to put it together once she arrived, and then ran towards the opposite side of the room. Doom swiftly shifted directions at the last second, charged up his right fist, reached Tony at the other corner, and then released his angry attack on the inventor's form.

Blood splattered in every direction. Yelps of pain and shock were heard. And when everything was said and done and Tony opened his eyes, his heart stopped.

He was safe. He had not been hit._ Someone_ had taken the hit for _him_.

And that someone was slowly falling to the floor, being glared at with scorn for his interference by Victor von Doom.

"No," Tony shook his head and caught his friend in his arms before his body connected with the ground. "NO!"

Jarvis opened his mouth to speak, but only blood sprayed out. It stained Tony's clothes and face, and it dripped down his arms. It quickly pooled under the old man's body, leaving behind a river of red liquid that ran away as quickly as his soul was leaving this world.

"Jarvis, no!" Tony shook the butler. "Why? Why did you get in the way? WHY?!"

"I-I…" Jarvis coughed out more blood, but he refused to welcome the enticing light at the end of the tunnel before answering his ward. "I-I've got… your-your back, M-M-Master St-t-tark."

Tony's mouth hung in disbelief. Jarvis smiled faintly. And he then closed his eyes for the last time.

"Jarvis. Jarvis! JARVIS!"

Tony's eyes remained on the man for another moment, willing him to hang on just a little longer while help arrived. However, when he heard the mocking voice of the murderer that had just taken the life of the man in his arms, Tony's head snapped up.

"And this, Tony Stark, is just the beginning."

Before Tony could make any type of retort, he felt his body tense up, his ears pop, and his brain become a jumbled mess that kept him from discerning what was what. It was just like when he had been stuck in the Mainframe with Basil Sandhurst and he had chosen to take on the vastness of the system for the sake of winning the fight. He felt his back join the floor. His eyes stung with unshed tears of pain, and the last thing he remembered with any clarity was a memory of Edwin Jarvis, shortly before they had taken off from the island to fight.

"_If you were going for a motivational speech, you kinda messed it up. I feel even more pressure now."_

_Jarvis laughed aloud and pulled away from him. _

"_Good. That was the point. Your mother… she would be so proud of her son. I know your father is. I know I am."_

xxxXXXxxx

He spared the inventor a final glance before he turned around in place and stared at the shocked faces of the members of the resistance. He knew anger would cloud their judgement and their minds. This was happening sooner than expected, but it had to be done.

Perhaps the hit on Stark was premature. Perhaps it was not as intense as it needed to be to begin with. But it _was_ a start. A very good start.

From this moment, and thanks to Doctor Doom, Tony Stark would finally become the one thing he dreaded the most. The one thing he had never wanted to be in his entire life: a human weapon of high-caliber – one that bent to the will of Doom.

From this moment, Anthony Edward Stark was no more.


	17. Chapter 16

**A/N: **Alright, my Faithful Readers, we are down to **one** more chapter that is pending writing (the next one). The ones after Chapter 17 are ready for posting. This is the expected timeframe: C16, this weekend. C17, next weekend (September 3rd or 4th). C18, September 10th. And then, to finally wrap up the story and the entire _Last Chronicles Saga_, the ending will be posted on September 17th – the day of my 6th-year wedding anniversary, AND also two days before the first chapter of _The Last Month_ was first posted, THREE years ago!

Can you say: EPIC? I CAN!

BTW: This chapter contains some very, very graphic scenes. Not sex scenes, but gory scenes. You've been warned :)

* * *

**Chapter 16**

The scene unfolding before them once they finally arrived at the main chamber was so blatantly deleterious that even someone as young as James Howard Stark knew it to be nothing but an excellent example of what downward spiraling pandemonium looked like – and he did not even know what the word _pandemonium_ meant. Both Pepper and James stood by the entrance of the large room and looked left and right, unable to focus on one single horrible thing at a time. Their trip down the deathtrap-filled hallway to the Power Core Room seemed like a walk in the park now, compared to how the rest of the team appeared to be fairing.

Fallen heroes and Doombots alike were scattered throughout the floor. Long lines of broken robotic parts trailed what could only be assumed to have been locations in the room where significant attacks had already taken place in their absence – parts that, much to her chagrin, belonged both to Doombots and to Iron Man armors. Towards their right, by the farthest corner of the room, Clint Barton could be seen on the floor, holding onto a broken-looking Natasha Romanoff – and if that scene alone did not immediately summarize and reflect the magnitude of the situation at hand, then nothing else did.

Nevertheless, she could not stop absorbing the situation. She could not stop staring at what her team had been reduced to.

_Oh, my God_, Pepper gasped. _How long were we gone?_

The more her eyes took in the current status of the team, the more she berated herself for not being here sooner. Even if she knew there was nothing much she could have done to expedite the task she had been assigned to complete, the chaos before her was too much to even attempt to exclude herself from feeling responsible for what they had just walked themselves into. Some members of the resistance were still standing, fighting with whatever energy they had left within them, but most of them were incapable of doing much more than struggling to take their next breath.

Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Nightcrawler, Beast, Hulk, Mandarin, Black Panther, and Living Laser all appeared to be the only other ones she could still see fighting Doctor Doom by the opposite end of the room they were in. Despite her best attempts, nowhere to be seen were Jarvis, Happy, Rhodey, Rogue, Gambit, Maya, Whitney and, her one and only, Tony Stark.

Pepper felt her heart sink at the realization of it all: her entire family, for all she knew, was already gone.

"Mama?" she felt her son tap her right thigh over her suit. "M-Mama?"

Rescue looked down towards her son, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. She gulped down the bundle of emotions she knew that the child could sense in her – which only added to his distress, and then forced a strong front before opening her faceplate. She bent down onto one knee, wiped her son's face of the start of sad tears, and then held his tiny face in her armored hands.

"Jimmy? Jimmy, look at Mommy. Listen to me, OK? Are you listening?"

"Yes, Mama," the boy nodded and sniffled.

"Good. That's good. Do you… do you remember what Dada told you? You remember he said you're a big boy now?"

This time, James's only replied was a silent nod.

"OK. Jimmy, your Dad wasn't lying. You ARE a big boy. And I need you to be a big boy again. Can you do that for me? Can you be a big boy for Mama?"

"Uh-huh."

Pepper softly smiled, oddly proud of her son's resilience through it all.

"Very good," she nodded. "Mama needs to go find Dada…"

At the mention of his father, the boy smiled widely and his eyes sparkled with joy.

"I go?"

"No, Jimmy," her answer made the child's entire hyped-up demeanor wane. "I need you to stay here. Stay. Do you know what _stay_ means?"

Once again, the child nodded without a word, his head hanging with disappointment.

"I no go."

"That's exactly what it means. You're so smart, Jimmy. Just like your Dada."

Some of his happiness returned at the implication that his mother thought that he was as good as his father, his chest swelling with excitement and pride.

"I stay, Mama."

"Yup. You stay here. Hide. No matter what happens, you hide, OK?"

"I hide."

"You hide."

"Yup!"

"I love you, baby."

"Love Mama."

The redhead gave her son a kiss on his forehead and ran her hands down his face one last time. She then stood up and made sure the child was covered by the shadows of the hall outside the main chamber. Even in the darkness, she could see his aura – such a powerful aura – pouring out of him; and she stated a quick, silent prayer to whoever cared to heed her pleas. Her son was the world to her, and to Tony. If anyone deserved to make it out of this with their life, it was he.

After a wink towards her son – one that the little boy tried but failed at returning, Pepper closed her faceplate and ran towards the battlefield.

She stopped in the middle of the room, a combination of her HUD and her Extremis-given abilities helping her get a better sense of what was going on. She could sense the auras of almost all of the people she could not see otherwise, and a sense of partial relief washed over her. Maybe they were not fighting Doom right now, but most of them were alive somewhere – for now.

"Pepper!"

Her head snapped to her left to see that the botanist was closer than she had thought she was. She was struggling to rise from the floor, using a pile of rubble as a crutch to stand up. Rescue was by her side in an instant, her suit and her powers telling her how much trouble the woman was really in.

"What happened? Did destroying the power core not work?!"

"It did," Maya hissed, her hand right pressing against the left side of her stomach. "It turned off everything for a few moments, but then Doom's suit powered on again. He must have a backup power source in his armor or something. I don't know how much energy he has left."

Pepper spared a glance towards the clearly uneven battle developing by the opposite end of the room before returning her attention to Maya.

"What about the Mainframe?"

"It's off. Doom can't plug Tony into it. The chips got fried, though. Doom used an EMP on us. The armors and weapons are done for. It's… it's just been awful! Everything is going to shit, Pepper! It's not good. It's not good at all! And then… Jarvis… Jarvis, he…"

Pepper felt her throat closing; the reason for not feeling the man's aura suddenly making sense to her.

"He took one for Tony," Maya continued. "And Tony… he… he…"

At the mention of her husband, the ginger's throat closed even more.

"Where is he? Where's Tony?"

Instead of replying, Maya's gaze and head turned towards where the genius was on the floor; his location hidden behind a mountain of debris – Jarvis's broken body still laying within inches of the billionaire. Pepper inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, her heart breaking into a million pieces with every shuddering puff of air. She could tell that Tony was not dead, given the status of his aura – but he did appear to be injured in some way. Jarvis, on the other hand, had already checked out of this world – gruesomely so, at that. The ever-loyal family butler and friend, was long gone.

"Jarvis," Pepper whispered and closed her eyes. _I'm so sorry, Jarvis! I'm so sorry, Bambi!_

The first casualty of a close-knit loved one in this war hit her with greater force than she thought it would. She was not sure if she would be able to live through whatever was to come.

"Pepper? Pepper! PEPPER!"

The ginger shook her head, inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, and then opened her faceplate yet again.

"I need you to go to my son," Pepper said in a commanding voice, very much in the fashion Maya had been told by Tony Stark to run for her life.

"Where is he?"

"Back there," Rescue pointed towards the hall she had come from. "I told him to stay put. But I need you to get him out of here. Now."

"OK," Maya nodded. "Magneto's outside. I'll get in contact with him somehow. I'll get Jimmy out of here."

"Good," Pepper swallowed hard. She ignored the thought that entered her mind of Magneto possibly recognizing her son as being the same as a mutant, killing Maya and immediately taking off with him instead of returning him to Muir Island, intending to raise him as his own just as Doctor Doom had attempted, and unleashing him on the world as some sort of mutant Messiah someday. One worst-case scenario at a time, she guessed.

"How long until the _Earth Movers_ go off?"

"Less than an hour or so."

"Then you have half of that time to get my son out of here and run away with him as far as you can."

"I know," Maya nodded, knowing that there was nothing else to be said or done. It had been Nightcrawler's job to get James Stark out of the danger zone, but said man was too busy fighting Doctor Doom. As far as anyone could tell, this was probably the last time she would be speaking with the redhead. As far as she knew, this was probably the last time she would ever see _any_ of them.

"Go," Rescue closed her faceplate and turned her back to the botanist, her shoulders squared and her hands in fists. "Take my son with you, Maya. And don't look back."

xxxXXXxxx

His body felt heavier than if he were trying to carry Titanium Man's entire armor with a broken pinky finger. He wanted to stretch his arm towards Jarvis, for whatever good that would bring, but he could barely force his lungs to expand enough to take yet another short breath. Even in this state of almost full-body shutdown, he could feel the blood he had been splattered with traveling across his pores, only to then settle somewhere once the trail of liquid thinned enough to start solidifying on his skin.

The thought of it was traumatizing in and of itself, but Tony Stark had survived worse things than this.

But maybe he would _not_ survive _this_.

_Jarvis_, he closed his eyes and straightened his head, remorse and guilt almost crippling him. _I'm so sorry, J!_

Whatever Doctor Doom had hit him with appeared to be slowly going away. He still felt incredibly beat up and his senses shot to hell, but perhaps, if he focused on regaining control of himself, he could get up and once again join the brawl. He owed it to Jarvis, anyway. He was here because Jarvis was not. He would just have to mourn him later. Much later. Right now, he_ had_ to pull himself together and fight.

Then again, that posed the question: why had Doom not just killed him now, when he had had the clear chance to do so? Was it because he had become distracted by everyone else trying to stop him? Or was it because he did not find the inventor to be a threat to him anymore? Then again, _again_, Doom probably still needed him for something; of that much he was sure. Even without the Mainframe being active, he was certain that the ruler of Latveria had allowed him to live for a very specific reason.

And whatever that reason was, Tony knew he would not like it at all.

Maybe the man planned to kill the rest of the team, incarcerate him while he restored power to the Mainframe, and then finish taking over the world with Tony's unwilling help. He knew that Magneto had specific orders to stay outside, in case Doom tried to attack his own castle once more; so the genius was on his own. He was also aware that, if worse came to worst, the entire city would be blown to bits by the _Earth Movers_, in an hour, at most. This meant that Erik Lehnsherr's job would then be getting little James Stark out of here – and only him – and leaving everyone else trapped inside the castle to meet their doom.

Tony inwardly groaned. That had been a very poor choice of words.

Was it really going to come down to _that_? Had it all truly just been narrowed to certain death for them? And what if their deaths did not stop Doom? What if they all died and left his son to fend for himself, and to be left with no choice but to bow down to his _adoptive_ dad?

_Fuck that!_ Tony gulped. _Fuck a bunch of that!_

Tony gritted his teeth, took in another shallow breath, and then tried to stand up.

_OH, SHIT!_

Another wave of pain hit him; one that was much worse than the original one. For a moment, he wondered if this was what Natasha had been feeling all this time. It would make sense as to why the poor woman had not been able to respond very well, and why she was still down, but he had a feeling that what she had experienced had been much worse than this. Doom did not need her to be meddling around. But he did need _him_ to be conscious enough to take orders from him.

_Not gonna happen. Not. Gonna. Happen. Not. Gonna–_

_"Tony! TONY!"_

His eyes snapped open and he gasped in surprise. He did not want to get his hopes up just yet, lest it turn out that his ears were deceiving him, but he _knew_ that voice too well. Even in as much pain as he was, and despite how dazed he felt, he would recognize _her_ voice anywhere.

"Pepper," he barely managed to say. "Pepper!"

He did not want to risk another bout of ache hitting and jumbling his brain, so he resorted to simply and slowly turning his head to his left. A small smile of relief tugged at his lips, and his eyes focused on her fast-approaching form. She was still in her suit – which meant he could use it to finish the EMP bomb he had made for Doom. And she appeared to be unscathed enough to be running towards him. His orbs then caught a glimpse of Maya Hansen running behind the redhead, heading the opposite way she was, and he hoped that it was because she was heading to wherever his son was at the moment and not because she was being a coward and was running away from the fight.

He curled his hands into fists, took in as big of a gulp of air as he could, and he then forced his wife's name to come out of his mouth once more.

His smile widened when he saw the clear signs that Rescue could tell that he was cognizant enough to recognize her presence in the room – perhaps had even seen the motion of his lips uttering her name. She was so close to him, so damn close now, that he felt his energy being renewed by just seeing her approaching him. He clenched his jaw as he pushed himself to his limits to slide his left arm away from his side and towards her, and then began lifting his hand.

He stretched his fingers in her direction, barely wiggling them up and down, as if calling out to her with the gesture. The redhead picked up her pace, retracted her faceplate and smiled at him, and then suddenly and without a clear reason for it, she halted where she was.

Tony narrowed his eyes, painfully breathed in once more, and then felt the world slow down around him.

He watched in confusion as Pepper's entire body stiffened and her mouth slightly parted, as if suddenly coming to a mind-boggling and horrific conclusion. She slowly began turning her head to her right, towards Maya Hansen's retreating, sprinting form, and the rest of her body followed suit. Pepper's head then turned to her left, and Tony's eyes followed what he assumed was the path of her line of sight. It was then that he saw what had caught the ginger's full attention just now and panic began rising in him.

The bright light emanated after a loud grunt of anger had filled the room – all coming from the heart of the battle happening behind them. The inventor's orbs quickly returned to Rescue's standing form, only to watch her head snap towards the opposite end of the incoming attack Doom had just unleashed upon them. The force of its release sent everyone who was still trying to take down the ruler onto their backs, the wave of heat traveling above them nearly scorching them to death.

Tony did not need to have his HUD available to know the massive ball of energy was not really heading towards him or towards Pepper. It was actually directed towards the botanist's location instead.

"Aya! AYA!"

_ No. _

He did not need to be psychic to know that a similar thought and fear had just befallen the redhead as well.

_NO!_

The little boy ran out of the protection of the shadows, his legs taking him towards the center of danger at a faster-than-usual pace. He knew his mother had told him to stay put. To stay out of danger and wait for her, but he knew that Daddy Doom was not above hurting any of them. He knew his Mama was strong. And so was his Dada, for that matter. But he knew very well that Maya was not as strong as his parents. Doom had always been able to overpower the only person that had cared for him while here.

"JIMMY, NO!"

He almost halted his running when he heard the anger in his mother's voice, but it was too late to stop now. He was almost near Maya Hansen's location. He was practically near the stunned form of the brunette, her eyes wide as she saw the attack coming towards her. The amount of energy that Doom had released upon Maya was so grand that it made his entire body tingle. There was no way that Maya would not be hurt by it.

But maybe _he _could help her. Maybe _he_ could do something about it. He was able to grow back parts of his body, was he not? Maybe, if he stood in front of Maya, she would be fine and he would be too.

He had made Doom back off once. Maybe he could do it again.

The closer the attack got it its target, the wider and taller it grew. Pepper's head moved left and right, alternating between staring at the blast approaching Maya and her son, and at the unprotected duo at the receiving end of the attack. She knew that, even if she sped towards her son and Maya, she would only be there to receive the blast as well. And if she tried to use all of her weapons to try to deviate it from its path, her son would be caught in the explosion of it anyway.

What she needed was not an offensive attack of epic proportions. What she needed was to erect a sturdy-enough defense for them.

Tony's eyes widened, feeling as weak and powerless as he had ever felt in his entire life. He opened his mouth to scream at Pepper, at his son, beg them to somehow run away, but only a croaking sound came out of him. He once more tried to get up from the floor to try to do something – anything – to keep his family from perishing in the blast, but all he managed to do was instigate yet another crippling spell of pain in his brain.

_NO, PLEASE, NO! NO!_

The inventor's pleas, however, were there for only him to hear.

As if suddenly snapping out of her reverie, Maya looked to her right and saw the inbound child stretching his arms towards her. Her eyes widened as the gravity of the situation became too real for her, so she forced herself into action. She closed the three-foot gap between herself and James, picked him up in her arms, and held him tightly against her chest. At the same time, she felt the whoosh of air generated by Rescue's form rushing in front her, and she was forced to close her eyes when the light of the beam was finally close enough to render her eyesight useless. She could feel the sizzling heat of the blast circling Rescue's frame, forcing the brunette to give her back to the heroine and curl her body around the small bundle in her arms. She tried to get up and run away from the pain of the heat, but she could barely force her lungs to breath in the baked air surrounding her.

"AAAHHHH!"

Tony Stark had never heard Pepper Potts scream the way she was doing so right now, and he could not even begin to imagine the amount of agony the woman was under at the moment. He had been on the receiving end of similar attacks before, and so had she, but he knew that, even inside the suit, the pressure of such an offensive move could become unbearable at the drop of a hat. The suit was added protection, not an unstoppable barrier, and all he could do at the moment was watch in a heap of incapacitation as this barrier began losing at what appeared to be its final act.

The force field she had erected was quickly crumbling under the pressure of Doom's attack, and this was the only thing separating his family from the deadly discharge of energy before them. It was going to dissipate, any moment now, and all he could do was watch.

_"This is it, Tony Stark,"_ the genius suddenly heard Doom's voice in his head. _"Watch the woman you love die before you. Watch her die while you know you caused her demise, and that there is nothing you can do to stop it. Just as I did. Just as__** I**__ did."_

As impossible as it seemed to him, the attack tripled in force following Doom's final warning. It cut through Pepper's body like a red, hot knife through butter, enveloping her in its overpowering strength. He heard his ginger scream in soundwave-laws defying intensity, only to then hear a similar noise coming from Maya Hansen and his son when the blast hit them as well.

As quickly as the entire move had come to life, from when Doom had surprise attacked them to when Pepper had put herself between the blast and their son, it all ended that swiftly as well; leaving behind an wide empty space where the trio had been standing just seconds ago.

His family was gone. His reason for being was gone. All while he had been nothing more than an incapable-of-action witness to it all.

xxxXXXxxx

"_Pepper: duck!"_

He flew through the front door of the Rhodes' home, not caring at the moment how they were later on going to explain the damage to Roberta. Surely she would understand, however, if they told her that the same man that had tried killing Pepper's dad had been after her, and that they had done what had needed to be done to stop him from harming the redhead.

Surely, Roberta would _completely _understand why he had gone all-out on a criminal and destroyed her front door. Then again, technically, it was _not_ he or Rhodey who had caused the damage. It had been _Iron Man_.

"What do they call you: The Whipping Boy? Whip-o? Whip it Good?"

**"Funny,"** Whiplash replied to him. **"Fix thought he might run into you one day, so he made… me."**

"Really?"

Tony could not care less about this man's backstory, but he played along. He was determined to do whatever it took to give Rhodey and Pepper a chance to escape with their lives.; even if that meant humoring this poor sap who had no clue what was coming to him.

"I'm flattered."

Before he knew it, the criminal had grabbed him by the neck and had pulled him down onto the ground with strength that he had not been anticipating from such wimpy-looking hand extensions – or whatever the weird fucking things were called.

**"And by the way, the name's: Whiplash."**

_ Yeah, Whiplash. That sounds about right._

When he opened his eyes again, he felt his lungs burn. With the suit out of commission, the oxygen supply had stopped functioning: he was suffocating. He really needed to fix that glitch. Later. Right now, however, he needed to get inside another suit to continue the battle, before Whiplash had another chance to take a shot at his redheaded friend.

_How does Pepper always manage to get herself into trouble?_ He pondered. She got into more trouble than he did!

He finally got out of the now useless _Mark I_ armor and ran towards the armory, his latest suit ready to be tested in the field. He really did not like using a suit that had not been beta tested under normal conditions, but there was not much that could be done about that right now.

It was going to be trial by fire. Just the way he learned best.

By the time he returned to the outside world, Whiplash had Pepper cornered yet again; his whips ready to cause some fatal damage to the girl.

**"You really should have run,"** Tony heard Whiplash say before he raised his right arm towards the redhead.** "Nothing personal."**

_ No, you don't!_

Iron Man caught the whip in his left hand, forcing the robotic man to look up and stop his would-be attack. Whiplash did not have much of a way to use facial expressions to convey his current emotions, but his head snapping back and forth between the empty suit on the ground that Pepper has been examining and the hero's flying form above him was clue enough to know the man was utterly confused.

**"How? Who?"**

"Don't strain yourself," Tony mocked Whiplash as he held the whip he had been readying to use against Pepper. "And by the way: the name's _Iron Man_."

Tony flipped Whiplash up into the air and then sent him to kiss the ground as hard as he could. Nevertheless, the man quickly stood up, extended his whips as far as they went, and then did something Tony did not expect him to do.

A fake out.

A pretend attack towards him.

A perfect distraction from his main intent.

Iron Man tensed up when he saw the whips heading his way, prepared to counter the maneuver, but was then stunned silent when the whips changed their path at the last second. They curved in the air, just inches from reaching his flying form, and then aimed straight down.

Right into Pepper's chest.

Right through her lungs and heart.

"PEPPER!"

She remained standing only because the whips were still inside of her, electrocuting her from within, frying all of her organs without mercy. As soon as the whips were pulled out of her, she fell on her back.

"PEPPER, NO!"

Iron Man flew straight towards her and instantly held her tightly in his arms, as if the force of his embrace would keep her in the land of the living.

"Pepper," he opened his faceplate to take a better look at her condition, the current whereabouts of Whiplash being of no importance to him. "Pepper, come on. Pepper, stay with me."

He adjusted her position so that he was still able to hold her with one arm and used his free hand to cup the side of her face.

"Pepper? Pepper, say something. More words, alright? More words. Please! Please say something!"

The redhead did not respond.

"No," he felt his throat starting to close. "No, please. Please, Pepper. Please…"

He brushed her red tresses from her forehead with a trembling hand. His eyes then looked down to the gaping wound on her torso, and he knew that she had been dead before she had hit the ground.

"Pep–" he could not finish saying her name due to a painful sob. "Don't… please… I… no… please… _NO_!"

He ran the back of his hand down her face; the guilt of not taking her seriously eating him inside. He had just told Rhodey that he was a jerk to her – that he could have been a better friend. He _had_ thought of making it up to her. He _had_ seriously considered bringing her onto the team, and now…

Now she was _dead_. Now she was _gone_. Killed while he had been standing mere feet from her.

Was this really happening? Had he really just lost his friend? Had Iron Man truly_ failed_?

Had _Tony Stark_ failed?

_I'm sorry! _He pressed her body against his armored chest and rocked her back and forth. _PEPPER!_ _I'M SORRY!_

But _sorry_ would not cut it, this time. _Sorry_ did not bring back the dead.

xxxXXXxxx

The heat that she had thought was going to burn her alive suddenly ended, leaving her dizzy, dazed and confused. She shook her head a couple of times, and then waited for her senses to reconnect with her brain. Her entire body was shaking. Her ears were ringing. Her brain felt muddled by mental fog. Slowly and surely, however, her entire being began rejoining reality once more.

_What the hell happened?_ She pressed her right hand against her armored forehead. _Am I still alive?_

Her palms landed on her chest, then her stomach, and finally on her upper legs. She licked her lips and swallowed hard, and then cleared her throat to speak.

"Computer: scan me."

She watched on her HUD as the _SOS_ performed the requested task. An image of her body appeared on the display, different numbers and tests simultaneously being run on her form. It took the system nearly a minute to finish its task but, once it did, the results only served to confuse the redhead even more.

_"User Rescue scan is complete. User's health is intact."_

"How?" Pepper frowned, looking around at the unfamiliar location. It looked as if she was in a hallway of the castle that had not been touched by the battle, but she had clue zero as to how this was even the case for her. "Where am I? How did I get here?"

_"Current location is: Doomstadt, Latveria. Mass displacement of user Rescue is a result of evasive maneuvers executed by Imminent Danger protocol."_

"Imminent… danger? What the hell is that?"

_"__**Imminent Danger**__ is an executable file designed to activate the intangibility feature of the suit. The __**Imminent Danger**__ protocol is to be run if the user's life is in danger of death."_

The redhead's frown deepened, and her eyes stared at her hands as she spoke once more.

"Intangible? What do you mean: intangible?"

_"The Rescue armor has been fitted with the same phase-shifting technology used by The Ghost."_

"The… Ghost? My suit has Ghost's tech? Since when?

_"User Iron Man integrated the new feature and its associated protocol as part of the basic design of the armor during its latest upgrade."_

With this information, Pepper realized that she must have fallen right through the floor of the main chamber, passing who-knew how many other floors, before finally ending up here.

"Tony," Pepper felt a knot form in her throat. "Tony did this for me?"

_"Affirmative. Feature is still in prototype stage, however. It cannot be used again."_

"OK. I got it," Pepper's hand landed on her chest. "Can't get lucky a second time. Can you get me back to where Tony is?"

_"Affirmative. Generating path back to user: Iron Man. Please wait."_

Despite the situation, Pepper smiled. Tony had done for her what she had done for him: secretly augmenting their suits to keep each other alive.

xxxXXXxxx

_Sir Mix-a-Lot_ and his _Robo-horse _were starting to get on his nerves. It had taken him longer than it usually took to defeat a guy this time around, but having finished his business with that knight-looking dude, he was now almost back at that abandoned warehouse where the Maggia and the Tong had been doing who-knows-what. He wanted to find out what kind of underground deal had been taking place between the two gangs – something he would have never become aware of, if the Mandarin had not used his rings of power. What had that been, anyway: a secret, criminal convention?

What did they call it: the _Mob-Con_?

_Whatever_, Iron Man scoffed at his silly thoughts. _I just want to stop the Mandarin, that's all._ _Besides, I still need to make sure that– _

The hero's thoughts were interrupted by the realization that the _Mob-Con_ was over and done.

Yet, the warehouse was everything but empty. In fact, it was even more crowded than when he had left it, nearly half an hour ago.

The battle appeared to be over, but the scene was now littered with police cars, a firetruck, and a couple of ambulances. It appeared that someone had tipped off the authorities about the illegal gathering, which had prompted them to show up. Better late than never applied here, so it seemed. They should have been here over an hour ago, though.

Iron Man slowly descended onto the ground, his HUD allowing him to scan the dozens of bodies on the scene.

_Bodies?_

He frowned at the thought. It took him only an additional moment to remember that these were gangs and/or mobsters – they did not take prisoners. They killed.

Based on a quick look, it was safe to state that both sides had taken a considerable amount of loses. The sight of shot-to-death ninjas and Chinese-star wounded-to-their-last-breath masked men would forever haunt his dreams.

"_You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to an attorney and have him present…"_

The sound of an officer reading someone his _Miranda rights_ caught Iron Man's attention. He lifted his eyes from the sea of deceased bodies around him to find the origin of the voice. He could tell the general direction where the voice was coming from, but it was not until one of the officers near the area moved that Iron Man was able to see who had just gotten arrested by _The Law_.

_Gene?_

Tony could not believe his eyes. Gene Khan was being handcuffed and lead towards a patrol car. He was by his friend's side before he even realized he had moved. And before _he _realized that _Gene_ had moved and had attempted to kick his armored self, the police officers had already started restraining the boy even more.

"You're too late, Iron Man!" Gene spat, his eyes red with anger. "You're_ too_ late!"

Tony stood there, still in his suit, wondering what the hell he had done to deserve such poor treatment from his friend. Then again, Gene did not know it was Tony behind the armor, but that did not explain the sudden hostility between them.

"Get in there! Get. _In_. There!" one of the officers yelled at Gene while he shoved him inside the back of the car.

"You were supposed to save her!" Gene growled. "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE HER!"

Tony was taken aback by the random statement, but before he could ask what the heck was going on, an officer spoke to him instead.

"Can you believe it? You're starting a trend, Iron Man."

"Huh?" Tony frowned, his head turned towards the man now standing to his left.

"A trend," the officer rolled his eyes. "Vigilantism, you know?" the man added before he pointed towards Gene with his chin. "That kid there… we gotta arrest him. But I hope he goes free. Yeah, he took the law in his hands, but he at least killed someone who deserved it."

"What? Who? Who did he kill?"

"Count Nefaria," the officer sighed. "Put one right in his brain."

"He… he, what?"

"Killed Nefaria," the man repeated while he pointed behind him with his thumb. He then patted Iron Man on the back and began walking away from the hero.

"Anyway, you better get going. The Constable is on his way, and he'll arrest you if he sees you here."

"Oh… OK."

As the cops that had taken Gene into custody drove away, curiosity filled every inch of Tony's being. He slowly looked over his shoulder towards where the officer had pointed to and, sure enough, he saw a covered body on the ground.

_Gene killed Nefaria? Why?_

Then again, there were plenty of reasons to kill the leader of one of the strongest crime families in the world, and being the stepson of the man suspected of leading the rival group of said crime family was certainly one of them, but none of that explained why Gene had just up and done it here and now.

_Unless…_

"_You were supposed to save her!"_

"No," Tony shook his head of the grim thought before he sped-walked towards the bagged body to calm the sudden fear that invaded his soul. "No. That's just ridiculous. She wouldn't…"

He paused and pursed his lips.

She would. She_ totally_ would.

His heart began beating faster than just a second ago.

Was Pepper here as well? Had she been arrested too? Or was she in one of the ambulances right now, hurt and confused? Maybe her Dad had already picked her up and she was being lectured on the way home? Maybe she was going to be grounded for months?

But what if… What if she had been caught in the crossfire? What if she was wounded? What if… What if…

_No. It's just… no._

It did not make sense for Pepper to be here, in any case. What would _she _be doing here, anyway? Was she not supposed to be with Gene, working on that_ amazing_ extra homework assignment that they had all gotten as punishment, thanks to her? Was she not supposed to be arguing with Gene about not getting any help to complete the project? Was she not supposed to be safe, at home, biting her nails because she had gotten herself into trouble, yet again?

Trouble. That girl was not only trouble; she _caused_ trouble. She probably got in more trouble by herself than _Iron Man_ ever got while actively _looking_ for it.

Rhodey had warned him, though: the redhead was a little bit on the crazy side – and she was also extremely reckless; that was for sure.

But, at the same time, she was also very kind and loyal: a true friend when the going got rough. She had helped him and Iron Man, even before she had known for a fact that they were one and the same. Just like James Rhodes, Pepper Potts was a one-in-a-million friend to him. He knew he could trust her with _anything_.

Nevertheless, he had kept it from her that Whitney Stane was Madame Masque.

Yeah. That had been very stupid on his part.

No. He would not do it again. He most certainly not do that again.

_I wonder if she's still mad at me? I wonder if she's… here…_

"No. Stop thinking like that."

Tony swallowed hard, fought his instinct to flee, and then walked towards the body bag.

He did not hesitate to unzip the bag knowing that, if he stopped to think things through, he would not be able to do what he knew had to be done. The evidence was not as gruesome-looking as he thought it would be. It was, actually, just as the police officer had described: a very dead Count Nefaria, with a bullet hole in the forehead.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

_Well, that's that. Now to call Pepper and find out if–_

_CRACK!_

"Oh, crap!"

He lifted his armored foot from the ground and flinched when he saw he had broken what was probably evidence of the crime. He aimed one of his repulsors towards the item he had just stepped on, shone a light onto it, and then his heart stopped.

The screen was cracked, and the device had obviously seen better days. But he recognized it immediately. He knew exactly what it was.

It was the redhead's cellular phone.

_No._

He immediately bent down, grabbed the phone, and unlocked it to try to read the screen. The image was bleeding onto itself, making it almost impossible to make heads or tails of what was on display. He did, however, see his name flashing on the top of the screen – something he knew popped up when the user was about to make a call.

Pepper was going to call him. But she had not. Why had she not?

"Hey, Iron Jerk! That's tampering with evidence! Get your hands off that, right now!"

"Where did you get this phone?" Iron Man was on the man in a second, holding the officer by the front of his shirt. "Where did you get this? Where did you find it?"

The officer, surprised by Iron Man's sudden outburst, lost his voice. He could tell, even without looking at the suit's pilot's face, that the hero was angry – extremely angry. And he knew he was about to become utterly pissed off.

"Answer me!" Iron Man shook the officer. "WHERE did you find it?"

The office did not verbally respond, but his eyes traveled to his right side, stopping only when they found their target. Tony followed the same path, leaving him staring at another body bag; the only _other _body bag on site.

There were at least two or three dozen bodies on the ground. But there were only two bodies in bags.

One of them was Nefaria's…

The other…

_NO._

He ignored everything else that was happening around him, his single goal being to unzip the bag the officer had reluctantly directed him to. He could feel his entire body starting to shake, his blood rushing to his feet, and his eyes starting to lose focus. He knew he was getting ahead of himself – perhaps even making mountains out of mole hills – but he had to know. He_ had_ to find out and _see_ for himself.

However, the moment he saw what he had not wanted to see inside the second body bag, he wished he had _never_ known.

"No," he choked. "N-NO!"

He fell to his knees, Pepper's phone still in his hand. His eyes widened behind his faceplate, unable to be open large enough to take everything in. His brain refused to process and to accept what he was seeing. It just did not make any sense. There was no reason for her to be here! There was no reason for Pepper Potts to be shot in the head!

Then, similar to the feeling of being showered with a bucket filled with ice, Gene's words finally made sense to him. His angry bout against him became completely justified. The reason for him to kill Count Nefaria was before him, in full clarity.

"Hey! Get away from her!"

"You can't be here, Iron Man!"

"Someone arrest this guy!"

"Wait, does he know her? Can he tell us who she is?"

"No need to. We already called her father. He'll be here any moment now."

The conversations taking place around him were muffled by the ringing in his ears. The face of his redheaded friend was clouded by his tears. He did not register when they had begun handcuffing him. He did not listen to the reading of his rights. He did not even answer Rhodey's phone call to tell him that Pepper had been killed by the Count.

No.

Nothing was getting through to him.

Nothing external mattered to him right now.

_Nothing_ could pull his attention from one simple thought: Gene's last words to him. Words he would remember until the day he died.

"_You were supposed to save her!"_

But he had not known that he should have.

xxxXXXxxx

Her fingers slid over her modified necklace and she groaned in frustration. She could have really used her mask right now. She had not been aware of how much she relied on the damned thing until this moment in time. While it was true that she had taken on greater and longer beatings while training under Natasha Romanoff's extreme techniques, nothing her mentor had ever put her through had prepared her for this. In fact, she was certain that there was nothing anyone ever could have done at all to prepare her for what she had done in the past few weeks.

Or for what she still had to do to Tony Stark.

She was exhausted. Out of ideas. Almost out of hope. The members of the resistance were falling like flies around her – some out of injury; some out of pure defeat. Doom was being held back only because Mandarin, the only member with enough energy left to stand against the madman – was as stubborn as fuck – perhaps even more so that the damned Doctor himself. And all three members of the new Stark family unit were down for the count.

Rescue had been disintegrated by Doctor Doom's attack aimed at the botanist. James Howard Stark was probably dead under Maya Hansen's awfully still body. And Tony Stark, while alive and breathing, was in a state of catatonia.

Or whatever the hell _this_ could be called.

And all _she_ could do at the moment was lie here and play bodyguard for someone she was not even sure would make it past the end of the fight.

_What's wrong with him? _Whitney narrowed her eyes, Tony's head on her lap._ Maya didn't say__** this**__ would happen to him. Not like this. Am I supposed to take a shot at him now?_

She knew that timing was everything as far as succeeding in her mission was concerned. This was her _one_ job; the reason she was here to begin with – she refused to fail at fulfilling her one goal.

The genius did not appear to be aware of his surroundings, but his eyes were wide open and full of tears. He had also been randomly shaking, groaning, and breathing hard, but no amount of external stimuli so far had been enough to snap him out of whatever trance Doom had him under. She had tried talking to him, pinching him, and she had even slapped him once or twice. Yet, nothing had worked on the billionaire. As far as she could tell, and as far as she was concerned, he was down for good this time.

_He appears to be alive… but also __**not**__._

Whitney swallowed hard at her own thoughts. She was not sure what to do now other than wait. Anyone who could have helped her make a decision was either gone or preoccupied with something else. The only weapon she had to use against Tony was fried. She had nothing to injure him with other than her own two hands. But even she knew that it would not do. This had to be done a certain way – and twisting his neck right now was not part of the plan.

She would just have to continue to wait. Either for him to regain consciousness… or for Doom to kill her dead on the spot.

xxxXXXxxx

_Just wait 'til I get my hands on that bald, old, buzzard-looking son of a…_

How dare he? How _dare _he?

How dare he steal his designs and then sell them? How dare he steal from Stark International? How dare he use the Iron Monger to threaten his family? How DARE he take _her_?

Her. _His_ friend. _His_ Pepper. His…

Tony felt his jaw pop.

He had just gotten her back from Rhona Erwin's crazy deathtraps at school! He had just realized that he… that he…

"Hold on, Pepper," he gritted his teeth. "I'm coming for you."

Obadiah Stane was _so_ going to get it. With the Hulk Buster in his hands and War Machine on the way, the Iron Monger was going to_ beg_ for mercy.

Beg. For. Mercy.

But Iron Man knew that he was not going to get any from him. Especially not if Pepper was not intact. Especially not now that Stane had taken her against her will.

How. Dare. He.

How dare he take _his_ girl away?

OK. So maybe she was not _his_ girl… yet. But she would be. He would make sure that she would be. He was getting ready for it. He just had not found the right time, place, or words to tell her how he had been feeling about her for a while.

_You're gonna pay for this one, Stane. You're SO going to pay!_

He did not even realize he had raised his arms and shot at Iron Monger until he had heard Pepper scream. He immediately turned back around in midair, grabbed the flailing redhead, and kept her under his left arm. He had very little time before Stane recovered from the surprise attack. He had but precious seconds to get Pepper out of the fight and somewhere remote and safe.

He reached the top of the building, opened his mouth to ask the poor girl if she was fine, but his words were halted when he was forced to look away. A bright light made him lose his focus and his grip on the ginger, which led to them being separated yet again.

"Tony!" he heard her scream his name, sounding as scared and as desperate as he felt himself. He had fallen onto the roof of the building, but she was falling towards the ground. He slammed his hands against the floor to stop his skidding and then looked up.

"Pepper!"

She had been in his arms already, and now she was in danger again. He had to get to her immediately. He had to keep her from reaching the ground. He had to–

"Iron Man!" she screamed again.

"UGH!" Tony felt his efforts become for naught when Stane grabbed him in the air.

"Hulk Buster armor, eh?" Stane teased. "I used a lot of that tech in Iron Monger."

_I don't care!_ The genius wanted to say, but the words never made it out when Iron Monger slammed him against the concrete roof of the building.

"NO!"

Iron Man stood up as quickly as he could and tried to rush towards the edge of the roof, but Stane stepped on him instead.

"_Rhodey!"_ Tony screamed at his partner via internal communication, the pain in his back not overpowering his need to know if Pepper had made it. _"Rhodey, can you hear me? Did you catch her? Did you save her?"_

"You ruined me, Stark! Ruined me!" Stane continued his ruthless attack on him.

"You ruined yourself!" Tony replied, if just to have something to say, before he tried reaching War Machine once more.

"_Rhodey! Answer me! Did you help her? Did you help Pepper? Is she alright?!"_

"_Tony, I… I…"_

"_Rhodey! What happened? Is she OK? Let me talk to her! Let me talk to her!"_

"_Tony… she can't… she didn't… I…"_

Tony gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes shut.

"_Rhodey…Is she? Did she…"_

"_I… I'm sorry, man. I… I couldn't get to her in time."_

"_Rhodey… w-w-what are you saying?"_

"_I'm sorry, Tony. I'm so sorry. But Pepper… she… she's gone."_

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper reached out her ability to sense auras as far as she could, trying to determine what had happened back in the main chamber. While she was too far away to identify specific individuals, by her count, everyone who had been there moments ago was still there, minus one. The only aura that she could identify – barely – was her son's, and she was just slightly calmer knowing that he was alright, for now.

She needed to get back to him and the others, quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Before she could continue down the right path that the _SOS _had laid out for her, however, her suit alerted her to the presence of a large concentration of Extremis near her location. The readings were emanating from a location she had seen on the castle blueprints back on Muir Island; it was where Maya had said her stepfather's main laboratory was, where he kept samples of all of the various strains of Extremis he had ever developed. The scans also currently showed the presence of a single person inside the laboratory, and the redhead knew who that person was.

Killian.

Aldrich Killian.

Pepper's brow furrowed as her expression morphed into a scowl that no one could see. Inhaling deeply, she began to march with determination and purpose down the empty hallway, heading directly for the lab. She would not get another opportunity like this, and she was going to take it now while it was presented to her. Doctor Doom might have been the great evil, but this was a personal matter that she alone had the right to resolve.

As she closed in on her new target, she felt a certain sense of providence; as if she had been moving towards this moment her whole life. In a way, she supposed she had. She had always felt as if her life had had some unknown forward momentum, different from the average person's basic awareness of time's inevitable march. She had never really known what it was, and for a time it had disappeared after she had met and befriended Tony Stark. However, it had reawakened the day she had discovered that she was adopted. With the crazy rollercoaster her life had been over the years since then, she had never really given much thought to that strange feeling.

But now, at this very moment, she could feel it building again, stronger than ever; a feeling of events coalescing, converging to a moment of fate – a moment of _destiny_ playing itself out at last. Along with this, a slow-boiling rage began to fill her, and she knew without a doubt that it was the same kind of rage that Tony had felt when he had heard their son say _Daddy Doom_. At this moment, she could fully relate to how her husband had felt; to lose sight of all else, to cease caring about any other concerns except destroying the one who was responsible for ruining his life. She understood that feeling all too well right now.

With these feelings consuming her whole being, Pepper moved with single-minded purpose toward the main Extremis research lab, determined to make sure that destiny's course was played out to the letter.

Let Tony have Doom.

Killian was hers.

xxxXXXxxx

"What in the world?"

Tony landed on the floor of the room and was immediately reminded of his own lab on a bad day of inventions gone awry.

_What is it with all these wires?_

But it was not just wires.

Around him and underneath him, covering every inch of the room, were parts of electrical devices and various tools: metal plates and covers, cut up wires, bulbs and circuit breakers, pliers and electrical tape, and every other part or tool Tony could think of.

_What the hell happened here?_

He reached a second door at the end of the first room and he immediately opened it. The door led him to another room, much darker this time, but its floor was still filled with spare parts of electrical components. The second room led him to another door, and that door led him to another room. This particular room also had empty wrappers of protein bars, old plastic containers of water, and torn blankets and clothes on the floor. To the blue-eyed boy the scene was one of a college after-party gone wrong.

With every step he took toward the backside of the room, the more the littering increased, and the more varied it became. And, the more he paid attention to it and flashed his light to it, the more the littering made sense to him when he began recognizing some of the schematics as his own.

_A radar, a mini Stark Pod, a repulsor… someone's been trying to build my designs!_

And that someone was lying on the floor, face down, still as a rock, two feet away from where he had just stopped.

"Pepper!"

The inventor got on his knees and with trembling hands pulled Pepper's body up from the cold, hard ground. As Whitney had described her, her leg was bent in such a way it was obvious to him that it had been broken, but was also being held in place by metal plates and wires that Pepper had used as tourniquets. Her clothes were torn and bloodied, and her hair had been cut uneven in some places, and bleached in others. Her lips showed signs of bruising, and the fact that she was as cold as ice did not sit well with him.

"Pep, can you hear me?" he brushed her bangs out of her face and lightly shook the girl by her shoulders.

"It's me, Tony," he retracted his helmet despite the inhospitable environment around them and pressed his ear to her nose and mouth. He could feel and barely hear her shallow breathing and he felt partially relived at this. But when he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers and was hit with the clamminess of her skin, Tony knew she did not have much more time left.

"It's OK, Pepper," he reassured her with a kiss on her cheek. "I've got you, Pep. I'm going to take you back home with me."

"T-To-o-o-ny?" her voice was hoarse, her lips barely moved, and her eyes were still closed, but he could tell that she was conscious enough to hear him.

"Yes," he breathed. "It's me. I-I've found you. I've finally found you. I'm sorry I took so long. Just hang on, OK? Just hang on. I'm gonna get you all better. I promise. I'm never letting you go again."

"You… came… for me… You… you didn't forget… me."

"Never," he placed yet another kiss on her face. "How could I forget about you, Pep? I…" he inhaled in sharp breaths, the memory of _Private Eye_ returning to him. "I saw your message, Pepper. I did. And… and I do, too. I love you, too."

Despite the amount of pain he could tell she was in, the redhead smiled. He then grabbed one of her hands in his, kissed the back of it, and then watched her smile slowly disappear. Her head tilting back followed this. Her body feeling heavier tacked on after that. And when she became limp in his arms, Tony felt his heart explode.

"Pepper?" he licked his lips, the taste of her skin still on them. "Pep?"

She did not respond, and a sense of inexplicable déjà vu hit him.

"Pepper? Can… can you hear me?"

He retracted the gauntlet on his right hand to press his fingertips on her neck. He closed his eyes. He held his breath. He counted to ten. And after a few more seconds of pointless hope, he screamed, its intensity echoing throughout the submarine's interior, louder and with more pain than he had ever felt before.

xxxXXXxxx

Aldrich Killian continued to fill the lead-lined suitcase with all of his essentials. His notes, his identity papers, his most precious Extremis samples: all of it was to be packed away.

He had not gotten to where he was today without being prepared for various outcomes to any situation. For the particular situation unfolding in the castle above, he most certainly needed to be ready for whatever today's events resulted in. The chances were very good that Doctor Doom would win the battle, and that the world would fall under his control soon after, providing that the Stark boy survived. If that scenario played out, he intended to be Doom's lieutenant; his right-hand man, which he had rightfully earned through his contributions to Doom's plot.

However, there still existed the chance that Doom would fall, and although the world would be in chaos for several weeks or months or perhaps _years_ afterward, it would still eventually recover. For that, Killian needed to have a way out – a means to slip away and disappear in the confusion so that he could continue his work elsewhere. With his essentials protectively packed, all he had to do was wait to see who would emerge victorious from that little scuffle upstairs.

Wait, see and then adjust. It was what he did best.

"That should do it," he said to himself. Talking out loud when no one was around was one of his bad habits that he had never bothered nor cared enough to rid himself of. "Now it's just a waiting game."

He looked around his laboratory, taking in the wonderful sight of his work. All of the beakers and flasks, the pre-filled administration syringes; all of them containing some version of Extremis that he had developed over the years. Maya had helped in cultivating several of the newer strains – as well as Stark and his family, with their unwitting contributions – but most of it had been all him. Decades of minor successes and devastating failures, but his patience and tenacity had paid off better than he could have dreamed.

Before he could move on from mentally patting himself on the back to the next item on his agenda, he was forcefully wrenched from his inner thoughts. He spun around to stare behind him as the double sliding doors to his lab exploded inward without warning, and with such violence that they were ripped clean off their frames. One door landed on top of his workbench, shattering every container on it and causing the table's legs to collapse, while the other door was embedded halfway into the lab's far wall.

He stood as still as a statue, gazing upon the scene in astonishment as the dust and plaster kicked up by the disturbance began to settle. As it did so, he heard heavy, metallic footsteps and watched as Rescue stomped through the dust cloud and into the laboratory. The armored heroine looked around the room for a moment until her gaze fell upon the scientist, who merely stared back at her, too stunned to move yet.

Slowly, Rescue's left arm rose up until it was leveled straight at him. The index finger extended from her closed fist until it pointed at his face. As she spoke, he could hear the hate and contempt that filled her voice, even through the armor's voice modulator.

"You."

xxxXXXxxx

"What are you doing, Pepper? PEPPER!"

Tony Stark screamed when he saw the three bodies about to hit the ground. He boosted his speed faster than he thought possible, but it was not fast enough to prevent what was about to come. In seconds that ticked by both quickly and slowly, his worst nightmare became true before his eyes.

_"Transfer X-51 onto target, NOW!"_

The suit immediately responded to Pepper's command and it freed its user from the protection it provided. The suit immediately enveloped the other woman, adjusted to her pregnant body, and kept her in the air just as two bodies hit the ground with a loud thump.

"PEPPER, NO!"

He was kneeling by her in an instant – an instant that was too late, nonetheless. Yet, his eyes refused to accept what was unfolding before him. He slammed his hand twice against the center of his suit to retract it into its backpack form; rain above him be damned. His hands then hovered over the ginger; her eyes were wide open but also completely devoid of life.

He did not need to have his suit on to know that she was gone. The trail of blood coming from the back of her head and the scattered parts of brain matter were more than enough to prove that she was dead. Her skull had shattered open on impact. Her internal organs and bones were probably burst or broken as well. There was no way she had survived this.

So close.

He had been _so_ close.

Yet, he had failed.

He could have saved her. He could have helped her. He could have prevented her from thinking she had to sacrifice her own life, if only he had left the other building a minute sooner. If only he had not wasted time fucking around with Sasha Hammer. If only his suit had been built to be faster.

_If only…_

"Pepper," his lips trembled while he carefully placed her in his arms, as if moving her too roughly would have any effect on her at all.

"Pepper, I'm sorry," he pressed his face against hers. "Pep, I love you. Please, _don't_ leave me! Please, Pepper! _PLEASE_!"

His words fell on deaf ears. _Dead_ ears. She had passed on.

He heard the paramedics asking him to move out of the way so that they could do their job, but he did not react. What was there to do? His redhead was gone. His beloved fiery friend. His soulmate. The woman he had seen himself marrying… she was gone. Limp in his arms. Her heart no longer beating for anyone – not even for her own self.

All because he had not been quick enough.

All because she was here for him.

All because he had been selfish enough to keep her with him, involved in a life that would always be full of danger, no matter what he did to minimize any assaults.

This was the life of a hero – a life of constant danger and the risk of death.

This was the life she had chosen to live… with _him_.

xxxXXXxxx

Finally feeling able to move again, Killian set his briefcase on the ground, beside him. He then stood up straight and casually placed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat; his pose one a normal person would take when greeting an old friend. Rescue's faceplate retracted, revealing beneath it the scowling visage of Pepper Potts-Stark. As he looked upon her face, staring back at him for the first time, Killian allowed his lips to spread in a smug smile. Seeing it infuriated Pepper, making her scowl deepen as she glared at the scientist.

"Welcome," he said with a tone of politeness that almost seemed sincere, as if he were welcoming an honored guest into his home. "I've been waiting for this moment a long time. We finally meet face to face, Virginia."

At his words, Pepper's scowl instantly changed into an expression of surprise, and she blinked a few times before regaining her senses. His words served only to anger her further, and this time she did not so much scowl at the man as look daggers at him.

"Do _not_ call me that," she said, coldly. "That's not my name."

Killian, despite the woman's warning tone, appeared unfazed by her words or response.

"Oh, but it is. That was the name your mother and I agreed on when she was still seven months pregnant with you. We weren't sure whose last name you should have, but I decided that it sounded prettier with your mother's last name. So that's who we decided you were going to be: Virginia Hayes."

Pepper took another step forward, practically stabbing her index finger at him with the emphasis of her words.

"Do _not_ call me _that_. My name is Patricia Potts-Stark. My friends and family call me: Pepper. You are neither. You have no relation to me and have no right to call me by any personal name. To you, I am: Rescue."

Pepper's body quivered inside the armor as she shook with rage. She was not exactly sure what she had come here to do, but she knew she had come here to do _something_, and if this man continued to piss her off, she was going to do that something pretty fucking soon.

Killian merely chuckled and waved his hands around in a dismissive gesture.

"Say whatever you like, Virginia. In any event, I'm glad to see you've made it this far," he continued to smile at her as he placed his hands behind his back. "I had thought, the day you were born, that you were another failure. One that was admittedly stronger than the rest, since you actually survived, but a failure nonetheless. You have no idea how thrilled I was the day I got the test results that confirmed who you were. That Extremis was in you after all, and that it had finally awakened. It was like you were calling out to me, in a way."

He took a few casual steps around her as he spoke, his face showing reminiscence. It sickened her, but she made no move other than to slowly turn her head as she kept her eyes on him.

"You're the proof that I had succeeded. That Extremis can bond with humans on the genetic level, so _completely_, that it is impossible to tell them apart. Impossible to know that it's not a natural development of the body. Less detectable than even the mutant gene that the world has been seeing lately."

He stopped his slow pace and turned to stare at her again. His face was no longer looking smug. He now wore an expression of gratitude and – she would swear to it – _worship_.

"You gave me the knowledge I needed to perfect the serum for me. After decades of extending the clock little by little, but never by enough, you were what finally helped me to save my life."

He spread his arms wide, palms out, indicating the lab. Rescue looked around and saw all of the equipment he had been using here, the table that held the display of what she assumed to be Extremis samples. Most disheartening of all, nevertheless, was a display case that held jars filled with what she assumed was formaldehyde. Inside the jars were tiny dissected arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes, some ears, and in one case, an eye. A very small, _electric blue_ eye. Pepper immediately knew exactly from where all of these _samples_ had been taken. The loathing that filled her was beyond measure.

"You, Virginia, made all of this possible. Made all of this worth it."

Pepper merely sneered back at him, disgusted by his tone of reverence.

"And just what was it worth? Saving your own miserable life?"

She turned fully toward him, her armored hands both clenching into fists while he frowned at her in disappointment.

"My life is one worth saving," he stated his answer as if it was common knowledge. "There are billions of people in this world, all of them nearly identical in their meager capability. Just a bunch of cattle, shuffling around, accomplishing nothing of any real value while taking up space and using up resources."

Killian swept his arms around the lab again, as if the obvious answer was all around them.

"I've created a miracle. The next stage of human evolution is in this room. The man who created the foundation for Extremis only allowed it to be used for making little war toys for small-minded men who had no idea what they had. But, _I_ took it further. _I_ took the so-called Super Soldier Serum and made something truly worthwhile."

His smile now was beginning to look like a madman's as he finished his rant. Pepper was tired of this already. And she decided a metaphoric splash of cold water was needed.

"You _lied_ to, _cheated_ on, and then _murdered _countless women and their children. Their _babies_. And you didn't even get anywhere until Tony was able to actually use Extremis. You're nothing but a killer. A killer and a failure, whose only successes were accomplished by others while you just sat back – waiting to take the credit for what others had done."

She felt a swell of pride as the self-satisfied look was wiped from Killian's face. After a moment, however, he smirked back at her.

"It was because of _my_ achievements that little James has the power he does. He would be just another mindless brat, if it weren't for _me_."

Pepper took a step forward, her fists clenching even tighter, forcing herself not to growl.

"Don't you talk about him," she commanded. Killian just raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in an expression of obvious condescension.

"And why not? He is _my_ little grandson, after all. He's spent more of his lifetime with me than he has spent with you."

At this, Pepper nearly combusted with rage. Her pupils dilated as they had done that time when she had pinned Maya to the wall, and her nostrils flared. She knew that if the self-obsessed scientist did not shut the fuck up in the next five seconds, things were going to get ugly.

For him.

"He's not yours! NOT. YOURS. His grandfathers are Virgil Potts and Howard Stark! Don't talk about my son as if you have any right to him. There is _nothing_ of you in him!"

Killian shook his head and wagged a finger at her.

"Tsk, tsk, Virginia. I'm afraid there is. And I don't even have to point out Extremis as an example. That adorable head of hair he has is enough. Looks just like a blend of yours and Tony's, doesn't it? But, have you ever noticed how, in the right light, it has a slightly blondish look to it? Now where do you suppose he got that from?"

Killian then grinned a knowing smile and pointed to his own head of blond hair. "Right here."

That did it.

Pepper's patience and restraint had been reduced to exactly zero with that little comment.

Rescue's faceplate slammed shut before she took two steps forward, raising her left hand and grabbing for the collar of his lab coat. Before she could take hold of the fabric, however, Killian's right arm shot up faster than she could follow and grabbed her wrist, stopping her arm from reaching further forward.

Before Pepper could even register how impossible this should have been, she instinctively lashed out with a punch from her right arm, aimed straight for the scientist's face. Killian's other arm shot up, catching her fist in his palm and holding tight, stopping her punch halfway to its target.

Without waiting for further action from the heroine, Killian lifted his tennis shoe-covered foot, planted it on Pepper's armored abdomen, and shoved full-force with his leg, sending Rescue flying back and slamming into the wall next to the destroyed entrance, leaving a decent-sized hole.

Shaking her head back and forth for an instant, Pepper pulled herself from the wall and aimed her repulsors at Killian. Just as she fired at the man, Killian flung off his lab coat, leaving him in his t-shirt and slacks, and jumped out of the way of the beams of energy. Pepper immediately switched her aim, trying to blast him back to keep some distance between them, but Killian performed two extremely fast tuck-and-roll maneuvers and ended up right in front of her again.

He lashed out with two punches to her chest plate – the reverberations of which she could feel in her bones – and then another punch to her helmet before sweep-kicking her legs out from under her, dropping the young woman onto her back. The scientist took a step back and his hands enveloped in fiery energy as he waited for his biological daughter to make her next move.

"Full scan of target, now!" Pepper ordered her suit. A grid outline surrounded Killian in her display field, feeding her information on the screen, none of it looking good.

"_Subject identified as a genetically-altered human male. Presence of Extremis enhancements detected,"_ the system said. Pepper gritted her teeth and caught her breath, getting ready to get back into the fight once she had a better idea of what she was up against.

"What version of Extremis is being detected?" she asked.

"_Extremis version: unknown. Multiple strains of Extremis nanoprobe virus may be present. Subject's physical enhancements include: increased strength, speed, agility and stamina. Other detectable enhancements include: combustibility manipulation, and electrical discharge projection. Subject's estimated upper limits exceed recorded limits of previously documented Extremis subject, designation: Agent Mallen."_

"Oh, well, that's just great!"

The suit had just basically informed her that Killian was Mallen on steroids.

_Peachy! Just peachy!_

Deciding to try a new approach, Pepper aimed a repulsor at Killian's feet and fired. The man jumped into the air to evade the blast, and Rescue took this opportunity to propel herself directly at him with her thrusters, grabbing Killian right out of the air and slamming him into the far wall of the lab next to the door that still stuck out from the wall. She then punched him across the face, snapping his head to the side. Then, in a rather creative move that she made up on the spot, she opened that same fist, fired her repulsor and let the kick-back of the blast propel her hand back the way it came, back-handing Killian across the other side of his face and snapping his head the other way.

Before she could strike him again, he reached up and grabbed her faceplate with his fire-engulfed hand. The contact began to interfere with the armor's systems. Pepper reached up to grab the man's wrist in an effort to pull her face free, feeling the heat through her gauntlets in the process.

Killian threw Pepper back, where she skidded on her armored feet across the floor until she came to a stop, waving her arms to keep her balance. Killian then shot an arc of electricity from his fingertips, which hit her in the chest. Although Pepper was protected from major damage by the suit, she could still feel the shock of the charge coursing through her skin and she cried out in pain. The systems began to fluctuate, and her HUD became covered in static as she was forced down onto one knee.

Killian walked forward, still sending the charge into her, and then kicked her in the head, sending her flying to the far side of the lab, where the Extremis sample display table was located. The Rescue armor scraped the floor, slowing down her momentum until she bumped into the table holding the samples, rattling beakers and syringes, but not damaging them.

Pepper was breathing hard, her nerves on fire from the shock. Killian had ceased his electrical attack after the kick, and she was now able to get her bearings as her display image became clear again.

She watched as Aldrich Killian slowly walked toward her, grinning in satisfaction, random sparks of electricity coming from his palms.

This was not going to be good for her.

Not good at all.

xxxXXXxxx

"Stay close," he told her and she complied.

They both began taking small steps out of the closet and into the room, and the crows immediately started to slam themselves against the shield. Neither of them was worried that the shield would give under the strain of crazy birds hitting it with everything they had, but the sight itself was horrifying.

Now that they took a better look at them, they both realized that these were not normal crows. The animals were slightly larger and bulkier than they should have been, their red eyes were so large they practically bulged out of their sockets, and if they did not know any better, they would have sworn they were snarling at them, as if they _knew_ who they were. Their bouts against the shield were vicious, and when the birds began to attack the back of the shield more than the front, Tony realized that these animals had not just accidentally crashed into their apartment; they had been_ sent_ here.

They had been sent here to attack _her_.

_Rhona_, the genius thought and his grip on the redhead tightened. The ginger, shortly after he had, also put two-and-two together when the flock began gathering themselves behind her and pecked at the shield, pushing her to press herself against the armor even though she knew they would never penetrate the force field.

"Tony," she whispered. "They… they're after me."

"I know," he gulped. "I know."

He stared left and right as they stood in the middle of their room, taking in everything around him to come up with an action plan. Leaving was not an option since the flock would just follow them to wherever they went and, if it was not just him in the suit, the idea would have been a good one. Staying put and hoping they left was also not an option, as it appeared to him that these animals had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but terrorize the girl. Using his weapons against them would also not help, as it would require him to lower the shield, which he definitely could not do as it would leave Pepper unprotected, and a brief second was all that was needed for one of the hundreds of talons or beaks around them to gauge an eye out.

This left him with only one choice, and while it would leave him out of the picture for a few hours, he felt that there was nothing else either of them could do at the moment. He turned around to face Pepper, retracted his faceplate and grabbed her face in his armored hands.

"Listen to me, Pep. I have a plan."

"What is it?"

"We're going to use the sonic blasters and knock them unconscious."

"OK," she said with a slight nod. "But, that means I'm going to be knocked out, too."

"No," he shook his head. "I'm going to put the suit on you and then you're going to use the sonic blasters."

"What? But… but what about you? They're going to knock you out for hours! And the headache afterwards…"

"I know. But _I'd_ rather be unconscious than risk hurting the baby. Happy, he-he told me what happened. I don't know what effect the sonic blaster could have on him, so we better not take the risk."

Pepper's eyes landed on her bump and exhaled in immediate defeat. Happy was not supposed to tell Tony what had happened yesterday but she figured that, at this point, it did not matter. They had more important things to worry about at the moment, like the fact that it was looking very likely that Team Iron Man was going to become extinct after being taken down by fucking birds.

"OK," she finally said. "But as soon as they're out for the count, I'm taking us to the armory."

"What? No. I want you to run out of here and find Happy and…"

"NO!" she grabbed onto his forearms. "I'm not going to leave you here with these… _things_… they're not normal, Tony. They… they look rigged and… are probably carrying mini-lasers in their eyes or disease or something and… and…"

"Pepper…"

"No," she said with a shake of the head. "You're going to be knocked out, anyway. You won't be able to stop me. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do. I'm not asking you for permission."

Tony rolled his eyes in exasperation and groaned. "What if more come?"

"Then we'll be safer at the armory. I doubt they can fly at Mach 3 speeds, anyway. They'll never catch up with us."

Tony closed his eyes and hung his head in resignation. "Pepper, why don't you understand that–"

"I do understand," she told him. "And I don't plan on either of us dying before we say _I do_."

Tony chuckled bitterly but finally nodded. She was right and he knew it. Even if he ordered her to leave him here, she would do whatever she wanted to do or whatever she thought was best even if it went against what he wanted her to do. This was one of the reasons why he was marrying her, anyway; her inability and unwillingness to take crap from anyone, especially from him, so he was not one to talk about how her stubbornness irked him in situations like these when it also turned him on.

"Fine. But this conversation is not over."

"And neither is the one from last night," she added with a glare and he cringed. He then stole a last glance at her, gave her a small smile and closed the faceplate. He immediately overrode protocol 7871 and prepared to transfer the suit onto her…

But it did not go as planned.

The protocol did not finish its sequence.

The suit remained on him.

And as soon as the shields disappeared in anticipation for the transfer of the armor, the sea of red and black engulfed the unsuspecting woman, pecking and scratching at her as if there was no other thing to do in the entire world until their last breath.

"PEPPER!"

"TOOOOOONYYYY!"

He tried to get to her position, and to scare away the crows with his arms on his way to her, but the mass just grew thicker and thicker, separating them more and more. He thought about using his repulsors to fry the birds, but he could not force himself to run the risk of hurting the redhead instead. He could hear her scream in pain and call his name for help, but he just could not reach her, no matter how hard he tried. He attempted to erect the force field once again, but he only managed to push the birds closer to her side.

"AAAAAHHHHH!"

"NO! PEP!"

Seeing nothing else that he could do to speed up his trek, he began kicking and punching birds in every direction, angrily shoving his way towards her. His desperation helped him gain a couple of inches of ground, but he quickly lost them when more birds came inside the room. The whole scene was surreal – suffocating, even, and in a frantic attempt at saving his now awfully-quiet fiancée, Tony Stark did the one thing he had not wanted to do in the first place: he set the sonic blasters at maximum power and released its relentless strength onto everything that surrounded him.

As a result, all of the birds in the room suddenly dropped to the ground, converting the carpeted floors into an ocean of thick feathers. At first glance, Pepper was nowhere to be found, so he began _digging_ through the mountains of twitching animals in the bedroom. It took him nearly a minute to finally find her, pick her up in his arms, and pull her out into the hall, away from the fucking nightmare the crows were turning out to be. Yet, it only took him a single glance at her form to know that he was too late.

Way, way too late.

"Pep… Pepper… PEPPER!"

It did not matter how hard he thought of screaming, he knew the dead could not hear the living. And dead was what Pepper Potts now appeared to be.

The crows had not shown her any mercy, and the current condition of her body was evidence of this. Her eyes had been gouged out. Hundreds of bites covered her once-pristine skin. Parts of her flesh had been torn inside out, and the presence of gnawed at bones made Tony look over his shoulder and retch. Even her womb had been savagely targeted, and a trail of blood oozed out from between her legs, dripping onto his clothes and scurrying down his pants' legs.

It had not felt as if he had taken_ that_ long to save her – but his eyes told him that he _had_ been more than just _too_ late.

"Pepper," he dropped to his knees with her still in his arms, the taste of bile still present in his mouth. "Pepper!"

He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, raging sobs threatening to crush his ribcage. He cried over her for nearly a minute, whispering to her long and meaningless apologies for failing her, until his heart skipped a beat when he heard a light moan coming from her.

He pulled his face away from hers and stared at her intently for a few more seconds. When no other sound was heard, he slowly placed her on the floor on her back. He inhaled sharply, eyes wide, as his trembling fingertips reached her neck. Filled with terror, he pressed his digits against her skin, held his breath, and then his jaw dropped when he realized that she was still alive.

"Oh, Jesus!" he swallowed hard. "Oh, Jesus! Pepper! Can you… can you hear me?!"

Another agonizing lament erupting from her lips was her only response.

Tony covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes and brain unable and unwilling to take in the truth. Pepper had somehow survived the attack, though not for much longer, he knew. And while she was still able to breathe and think, he knew that the pain she was experiencing was unlike any other he had ever felt himself before.

"To… ki… m-m-me…"

"Pep…" he grabbed her face in his hands. "Oh… Pep…"

"Ki-i-i… me…"

It took him a moment to decipher her message; and another moment for his brain to process her request. Yet, once it dawned on him what she had just asked for him to do, he found himself reluctantly agreeing with what she was wanting of him.

She had just been mauled and irreparably mutilated by an army of angry crows. Who would want to survive this?

_Nobody_, he answered his own question, eyes stinging with unshed tears. _Nobody would want to live like this._

"To… ny… p-p-p-pleea… se…"

Not believing what he was doing, he gave her hand a tight squeeze before standing up in place. He took a moment to give her entire body one last look; to ingrain in his brain the memory of what he had done – of what he had allowed to take place to her. He would take this mistake to his grave. He would live the rest of his life knowing that he had been responsible for the death of the woman he loved.

"To-o-o-n-n-n-y."

"I'm sorry," he exhaled as he raised his right hand and aimed his repulsor at her face. "I'm so sorry, Pep."

There were worst ways to die, he knew. But between an option to die slowly after being attacked by rabid birds and getting your head swiftly blasted into pieces by blunt-force trauma, quick but painless was always the better way to go.


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Pepper propped herself up on one elbow, her forearm lying flat against the floor. Her heavy breathing from the attacks she had sustained was easily seen, even through the armor. She stared up at Aldrich, who smiled down at her, and felt her anger quadruple by just staring at his incoming form.

"I gotta say, Virginia, I wrote you off as a lost cause the day you were born. I detected no Extremis in you at all and knew it was time to move on, after clearing up loose ends, of course. But I see now that I was wrong to do so."

His tone then took on an admiring quality that made Pepper want to puke. She knew by now that the guy just loved to talk and talk, and that he did not know when to shut up – and who that reminded her of made her begrudgingly accept, if for just a fleeting second, that this man was really the provider of half of her genes.

However, she knew she could use this annoying trait of the family to her advantage. The Mandarin had once used it against her – way back when. There was no reason not to turn the tables on this man as well.

Keeping her armored head looking up at the man, her eyes darted around the room, looking for anything that she could use to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile, the weasel before her continued his boring spiel, unknowingly granting her some type of advantage for the time being.

"Even before Extremis woke up in you, you'd already made something of yourself. You had such drive. Such ambition. Such _spirit_! I can't deny that Potts did a fantastic job raising you," he knelt down so that he was more eye-level with her.

"It's no wonder that after meeting you, Stark really had eyes for no one else. Who else could possibly measure up, for someone like him? You're so much like your mother, it's truly incredible. I'm proud of you, Virginia, I really am. Extremis wasn't my only great creation after all. You've impacted and changed just as many lives as I have."

Pepper knew that she needed to make a move, and it had to be fast. She could not let him see it coming, either. And she also knew that the best way to throw him off-guard was to attack his pride in his life's work; assault his feeling of accomplishment. Mad geniuses always fell for stupid crud like that.

"You're so pathetic," she said in a flat, dull voice that she knew tended to irritate Tony to no end when he had been arrogantly sharing his latest invention with her and she had jokingly poked fun at him. Just as she had expected it to be the case, Killian's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but the excitement reflected on his face did not falter.

"An odd statement, coming from the little girl lying on the floor at my feet," he said with a chuckle. Pepper shook her head and opened her faceplate, wanting him to see into her eyes while she spoke.

"You are no _savior_. No _great achiever_. You didn't create Extremis to save the world… you did it to save yourself. You can tell yourself that you did it for humanity all you want, but everything you've done so far was to avoid facing reality. You're the biggest coward I've ever met in my entire life."

She silently cheered in triumph at the look that crossed his face; his disappointment, his _irritation_, at _her_ calling _him_ out on his bullshit.

In his mind, however, this child knew nothing of him and his struggle. She had no clue what he had gone through and survived his entire life. Unlike him, she had been handed a life of superior health and support. She had no idea what it was to be solely responsible for your own life. She did not know what it was to see your prime years slipping away from your grasp.

If there was only one moment in his existence where he called on his fatherly right to teach this insolent brat of his something about how the world worked, it would for her to realize that she knew nothing about what it meant to be dealt a shitty poker hand from birth and then still manage to spit success back at life.

"_I_ saved myself from something no one else could have stopped. I took my life into my hands. _My_ destiny. A real man owns himself, and that's just what _I_ did," he ranted.

Pepper snorted at that. She then could hold herself back no longer and burst out laughing, loud and hard. Killian was taken aback by the out-of-place reaction, but Pepper could not see his expression due to her eyes being squeezed shut with the force of her laughter. Once she got control of herself and her laughter was minimized to light chuckles, she blinked away the tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, nuts! I didn't know you were funny. You're no real man. I _know_ real men. I've been around them my whole life. My father is a real man, for raising me on his own. My husband is a real man, for taking on the world to keep me safe. My three best friends are real men," she smirked in defiance at him as she said this, knowing that the truth of her statements would hit him right where it hurt.

"My God, even Doom is a hundred times the man you are! He owns himself. He took over a country – and now a fucking planet – on his own. He had real plans. _Real_ ambitions. He understands what power is and how to take it for himself. But not you. Not. You. You're just a scaredy-cat trying to avoid death. A sniveling little nobody, who is too afraid to look into the light at the end of the tunnel. My son has more courage than you do. You? A real man? You don't even know what the fuck that means, Killian."

Without warning, Pepper lashed out and kicked him in the face, sending him stumbling back; her attack too fast even for his reflexes to block. She jumped to her feet before he could recover, reached behind her to grab from the table the first item her fingers closed around, and then flung the object forward just as he was turning to face her.

Killian took a step forward before realizing that he had been struck. He then looked down at his left arm, only to see a quick-use syringe sticking out of his bicep. Pepper had raised her gauntlet to shoot him in the face with a repulsor while he was distracted, but stopped when she saw his expression. For a split-second, an almost too-quick-for-the-naked-eye moment, absolute concern – perhaps even deep worry – had flitted across his face. He then scowled, held back a groan, and pulled at the syringe in his arm.

"Shit," he hissed, examining the puncture on his arm and then looking at the syringe, noting that it was now empty. These syringes did not require a plunger to be pushed after the needled was inserted; the pressure brought on by pushing the needle into the subject caused an automatic release of its contents.

Whatever had been inside that syringe had worried the asshole before her. That had to mean something. And she was sure as hell that there was more where that little number had come from.

Pepper turned to the table behind her, taking a good look this time at what was on it. She noted test tubes, petri dishes, a few microscopes, and numerous glass containers that all held what appeared to be the same green fluid she had just shot at Killian. She was not a certified genius like her husband was, but she was certain that she knew what this fluid was: the pure liquid form of Extremis – and it was probably also not one that was as merciful on the body as the drops Tony had injected himself with, long ago.

She also saw dozens of syringes set out in a row, pre-filled with the bio-enhancer, and looked back at Killian again. She saw that the small needle puncture had already healed, but a faint glow surrounded the area where it had been lodged in his arm. His expression was one of mild discomfort and this gave her an idea. She grabbed two more syringes, prayed that her assumptions were spot on, and then turned to face the man once again.

Killian looked up at her and took two more steps in her direction before she flung another syringe at him, this one puncturing the upper thigh muscle of his left leg.

"Goddammit!" he shouted before ripping out the syringe, but not before its full load had been pushed into his bloodstream. He winced as pain that resembled muscle soreness spread throughout his left leg, and he then continued to move in on Pepper. Before he got another step, however, the other syringe she had grabbed was thrown like a dart, burying its needle in his upper chest.

"Stop that!" he commanded, ripping the syringe out and throwing it to the floor before gasping out from the sharp pain that spread through him. Pepper noted that his eyes were beginning to glow an orange-red color, and it was then that she knew that she had guessed correctly. The many different strains of Extremis were incompatible with each other, at least when injected in large doses, without giving the host enough time to acclimate to the influx of new viral probes. She had experienced that herself, having barely survived her pregnancy, years ago.

"Why? You like science, right? So let's experiment. What happens when you combine all these different types of Extremis into one body… at the same time?"

She grabbed several syringes in each hand, turned around, and then began throwing them at the man, one by one. With each injection, Killian cried out in pain and tried to pull out the syringe before they could inject too much into him, failing to do so each time.

Pepper watched his skin slowly begin to bubble and writhe, as if small insects were scurrying around just underneath the skin. Steam seemed to be rising off of him, and she could swear that his shoulders were beginning to swell, like inflating balloons. His face was twisted in pain, and she began to see that same glow in his eyes was beginning to emanate from his ears, nostrils and throat.

"_Warning: subject's core temperature rising to critical levels. Extremis build-up is accelerating cellular division to maximum capacity. Chain reaction with possible explosive potential is imminent."_

Pepper did not ignore the warning, but continued to do what she was doing, wanting to reach that chain reaction, not avoid it.

By this point, Killian had fallen to his knees, his clothing beginning to smolder from the increased heat within his body, steam leaking out of the holes in the fabric left by the syringes.

Pepper grabbed two more handfuls of syringes, the last ones on the table, and ran over to the kneeling villain. Like a maniac in a horror film, she began to straight-up stab Killian in the neck, shoulders and chest, over and over again.

"How do you like it, huh?" she shouted, the steam from his body uncomfortably warm on her uncovered face, but not caring in the slightest. "How do you like having this shit shot into you, just to see what happens?!"

Killian screamed out in response, not really feeling the stab of the needles through the agony caused by the Extremis mixture wracking his body. His skin began to bubble more intensely now, some of the bubbles popping, sending globules of steaming, glowing blood flying every which-way. She could tell from his aura that his body chemistry was damaged to an unrecoverable point, and that he was in immeasurable pain

"This is for daring to take our son from us and putting your filthy hands on him! This is for what you did to my mother, to Tony's mother, to Maya's mother! For ruining our lives! For every life you ever ruined, you bastard!"

With each shout into his bubbling face, Killian screamed out in torment and indignation.

"Stop! Stop it, you bitch! You-you can't do this to me! I-I made youuuu!"

With that, Pepper placed her armored foot on his chest and fired the thruster, blasting his chest open and knocking him onto his back, where he continued to writhe, actual flames beginning to flare up at his fingertips and burning through his shoes.

"That's right," she shouted as she knelt down and continued to stab the last few syringes into his body. "You made me, and now I'm unmaking you. Do you understand that, do you see the irony? I hope so."

She had one syringe left now, and she grabbed him by his burning neck with her left hand as she held the last needle in her right.

"You created me, and you created Extremis, and now we are both going to destroy you. Don't you forget that. Keep repeating it in your head, over and over. I want it to be the last thought you have!"

And with that, Pepper plunged the syringe through the opening she had made in his chest cavity, straight into his glowing, steaming heart. Killian screamed out like a wounded animal and Pepper stood up, stepping back from him.

"_Warning: explosion imminent. Evasive action recommended." _

Pepper was going nowhere; she was going to witness this. She closed her faceplate and put up the armor's energy shield, waiting for this crucial moment to finally go by.

"AAAAARRGGGGHHHH!"

Killian screamed out at last and, in the next instant, the entire lab around Rescue went white.

xxxXXXxxx

He held her limp left hand in both of his and pressed his lips against her skin. He had been staring at her still form for hours now, ever since he had returned from killing Rhona and he had been allowed to come inside the room. To anyone who was not privy of her real state, the ginger looked as if she was just sleeping peacefully, with no care in the world, but Tony Stark knew better than that.

"I'm sorry," he said with unshed tears. "I should've been here with you. I should've never left you, Pepper."

He had been holding back his tears for too long, so they were now threatening to drown him alive. Even though a birth was a cause for celebration, he could not force himself to pull away from her bedside to meet the perfectly healthy little guy that had been born hours ago. Even if he had not intended to, even if the baby had not plotted against his mother, the birth had been very complicated and Pepper had lost the chance to ever meet him at all.

And he, Tony, had lost his fiancée.

He closed his eyes, rested his head on her now flat stomach and inhaled slowly. He remembered the last time he had been like this with her – her unconscious body under his head, her hand in his. It seemed like a bad dream now, but he knew very well that it had been true. It had happened, long ago, and when she had woken up from it, she had left him for good. This time, however, history would not repeat itself... because she was not going to wake up again.

"Pepper," he began as he lifted his head from her stomach and then pressed their foreheads together. "Please, open your eyes, Pep. Please, please open your eyes. I just want to know you're alright."

Why he was asking and expecting a corpse to wake up was beyond him. He knew that it was nothing more than wishful thinking. Highly delusional thinking, in fact. He knew that she had not made it. He knew that she had died during childbirth while he had been away fighting Rhona Erwin. He had taken a life and had had a life taken from him. Perhaps, as irony would have it, probably at the exact same time.

His redhead – his fiancée – the only woman he had ever truly loved, had died giving birth to a child – _his_ child.

Actually, now that he thought about it, it had not actually been simple childbirth that had killed his ginger. It had been him. Just him. Perhaps not quite directly, but it had been Extremis which had caused her ultimate demise.

Extremis; _his _Extremis, the one he had passed onto his son and which had momentarily lived in her while pregnant, had killed her.

_He_ had killed _her_.

He had set her on this path to destruction. He had not really given her a chance.

This moment – this part of their destiny – he figured had been inevitable. It had been years in the making, born the moment he had met her; set in motion at the exact same instant his eyes had landed upon her while on the roof of the academy. If he had never met her, she would have never become his friend. If she had never become his friend, she would have never fallen in love with him, and him with her. And if they had never fallen in love with one another, she would have never become pregnant with his child.

His child. His baby boy, who no longer had a mother, solely because his father was a giant, selfish asshole who had been unable to let her go.

"Will you ever forgive me, Pep?" he whispered to her motionless body. "Will you ever forgive me for killing you?"

Unfortunately for him, she had no way of responding to him. And, if she had had any way of doing so, he knew that her answer would have been nothing more than a painful and resounding _no_.

_I killed you, Pep. I killed you._

Surprisingly so, he found himself realizing that, if need be, he would gladly do it again.

xxxXXXxxx

The smoke was starting to clear a little, filtering out through the open doorway, as well as the several new holes recently made in the laboratory walls. Pepper lowered her shield, and small pieces of floating ash and soot began to land upon her, turning the light silver and purple colors of the Rescue armor to a dark grey and deep purple scheme.

She took a few steps forward, waving the remaining smoke out of her way, and looked down on the spot where Killian had been. All that remained was a shallow, smooth crater in the floor, black smudges all around it and on the wall behind it, and a faint silhouette of a human body in the middle of the crater; its outline bordered with ash. No flesh remained. Not even clothing. Nothing lingered of the pathetic man who had been sprawled before her, in his death throes, minutes before.

Pepper's pupils returned to normal, and she looked around the room, intending to destroy whatever was left of Aldrich's research. However, she noted that the shockwave of the explosion had smashed all furniture, equipment, and samples in the room into pulp along the walls. The intense heat that had immediately followed had burned, melted or just plain disintegrated all of the remains. Even the lead-lined suitcase he had been preparing to hide away near one of the exits of the castle had not escaped; it had been broken open by the blast and its contents charred beyond recognition or recovery.

There was nothing left of his work; nothing other than Tony, James and herself. There was nothing left of Killian's decades of research and labor. It was all gone.

Pepper looked back at the outline inside the small crater. She thought about saying something; some final statement or declaration over his grave, of what she had done and what for. Perhaps, some witty one-liner in the style of James Bond after having dispatched a bad guy. Even a simple whispered _good riddance_ would have probably been acceptable as well.

But instead, for once in her life, Pepper found she had nothing to say. Absolutely nothing. And she realized that it could have not been more appropriate this time. There was nothing left of Killian; nothing left of his work that could truly be said to have belonged to him. Nothing left of his legacy. Nothing resembling a fond memory anyone would want to hold on to. And now, in this very instant, _she_ had nothing to say on the matter of his passing.

So very fitting, indeed.

As he had been in life, so he was now in death: nothing.

With that strange feeling of forward momentum and converging destiny finally gone from within her – satisfied at last – Pepper turned away from the crater and made her way to the lab's exit, calling up the structural plans of the castle in order to find the quickest route back to the main chamber.

Now that the worthless insect that had spawned her had been dealt with – permanently – she focused her attention back to the matter at hand, and knew that she needed to get back to Tony and the others.

It was time for them to finish off Doom once and for all, pack up their shit, and go home.

Home. Wherever that ended up being now.

xxxXXXxxx

_Fill my heart with gladness  
__Take away all my sadness_

He knew that there were currently many eyes on them, but the only eyes he cared about were her loving hazel ones staring back at him. It was very likely that he looked like a stupid, dopey lover boy right now, with the way he was entranced by her presence in his arms, but he could not find it in himself to give a flying fuck about that. If anyone were to judge him for losing himself in the eyes of his wife, they were just bitter assholes with nothing better to do. This was his first dance with his redhead, as his spouse, and he was going to take in every detail of it.

_You fill my life with laughter  
__And somehow you make it better_

He closed his eyes and rested the side of his face against hers. He could not keep himself from pressing light kisses to her temple, cheek and jawline while holding her tightly and swaying them from side to side; leading their intimate and slow dance. She allowed him to do as he pleased with her, also obviously relishing the fact that, after everything that had tried to separate them, they were finally husband and wife.

_There's a love that's divine  
__And it's yours and it's mine like the sun_

She smelled of serenity and happiness, and he counted himself lucky to have her by his side. He had been scared that something or someone would end up disturbing their wedding ceremony, or maybe their reception. Even if that something was nothing more than an unexpected tropical storm, or that someone happened to be their very own son, he had hoped that nothing ruined their day. So far, everything had been going according to plan. The weather had been beautiful, and little James Stark had been behaving like a good little boy; enjoying every ounce of attention he was getting from his grandparents and uncles alike.

"You're so quiet, Tony," she whispered in his ear and he felt a shiver of pleasure run down his spine. "Already bored at your own wedding, Mr. Stark?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Stark," he teased, loving the way the title rolled off his tongue. "Just wondering if we could ditch the rest of the party and go straight to the honeymoon."

Pepper pulled away from him, her mouth opened wide.

"Ditch the rest of the party? You mean ALL of the party, right? It hasn't even really started yet, Tony!"

"It hasn't," he feigned ignorance, a wide smile on his face. "Well this is taking forever, if you ask me. We've got a very comfortable bed that needs to see some use."

"Tony," she said with embarrassment, rested her forehead against his shoulder, and he chucked in response.

_Fill my heart with gladness  
__Take away all my sadness  
__Ease my troubles that's what you do_

He closed his eyes again and placed his chin on her head. They continued to move to the tune, stopping only when he could no longer hear the music or feel her.

He slowly opened his eyes and realized that Pepper was no longer standing in front of him. He had not felt or heard her move. He had also not become aware of when the music had stopped playing altogether. Or of when he had left the center of the dance floor and placed himself in the middle of _this_ room.

"I'm so sorry, Tony," he heard Rhodey say, followed by a heavy pat on his right shoulder, as his friend walked by next to him. Tony looked over his shoulder to trail his retreating form with a frown, the always proud agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. dragging his feet away from his childhood friend, which left Tony only that much more confused about his current situation and whereabouts.

As his head returned to face the front, he expanded his field of vision and realized that he was now alone in the room. In addition, based on the floral arrangements that covered every square inch of the stage, the situation he was a part of was slowly starting to make sense to him.

He gulped and made careful and deliberate steps towards the front of the room. He took in a deep breath and held it in his lungs, preparing himself for what – or whom – he feared he was going to see inside the open casket before him. He glued his eyes to the expensive-looking mahogany cover of the coffin, noticed the fine, rich silver and purple-colored satin fabric that covered it, and he then forced his gaze to lower and lower until his eyes landed on her.

Her. Pepper. His Pepper. Was lying dead before him.

_W-what? _

He shook his head from side to side in disbelief, his brain refusing to believe what his eyes were showing him.

_She… we… we were just… and I… but how… I mean…_

"Pep?" he fell to his knees before her coffin. "Pepper?"

His eyes lingered on her face for another minute before he began examining every inch of her body. He could not tell what had caused her demise. She did not appear to be injured. She actually just looked to be peacefully sleeping. She did not look dead at all.

"How, Pepper? How did this happen? When did this happen? I can't… I just can't… I…"

"_Poor man,"_ he heard someone behind him say, possibly believing he was too entranced in his mourning to really pay attention to the hushed conversations by the other end of the room.

"_Tell me about it," _a second voice said._ "First the little boy, then his wife. Both died of unknown causes, months apart. It was just like with his mother. No one knew what caused her heart attack. What are the odds?"_

He frowned as he processed the comments. They were not talking about his son, right? They were not talking about Maria Stark, right?

_Months apart?_ _Unknown causes? What unknown causes? What the fuck is going on?_

"Why didn't you kill me first?" Pepper suddenly opened her eyes and stared directly at him; startling the hell out of him and almost making him trip on his own two feet when he stood up.

"Pepper," he held on tightly at the edge of the coffin, his eyes wide in incredulity. "Pepper, you're alive!"

"Why didn't you kill me, Tony?" the redhead asked again. "You promised you would!"

"I promised? When… when did I promise that? When did I… did I… AAAHH!"

Before he could do anything about it, Pepper had sat up inside the casket and had placed her hands around his neck. Her grip on him was strong – stronger than he would expect a dead person to have. He closed his eyes in pain, tried to pull her hands away from him, and he then heard her utter his name in the sweetest of tones before her hands were on his neck no more.

"You've done it before, Tony. I know you can do it again."

_Done it before? Done what?_

He opened his eyes once again, and he was shocked to see that he was no longer at a funeral home, but with Pepper in their bed.

"It is the same," she responded before she slowly ran her fingers through his hair. "It'd probably be easier to do it on me than it was on those before. You… you told me once that you didn't know you had it in you… until you did it. You told me that you didn't regret it, remember? You told me you'd do it all over again, if your loved ones were in danger. You told me it got easier every time."

"On them. On the ones who tried to hurt the people I love. It's… it's different to do it on the people you're trying to protect in the first place. Especially you."

"Are you saying you regret doing it all?"

"No. I only regret the way I killed one of them… Rhona, actually. But when it comes to protecting you, Pepper, I regret nothing at all."

"Then protect me now. Be the one who ends it, not S.H.I.E.L.D. I… I can't do it myself… I don't have what it takes. I… I don't think I'll ever have what it takes to do this to anyone. You have to do this for me, Tony. If you don't… if you let it happen on its own… S.H.I.E.L.D…. they win."

"They've already won. For now, at least. Until I deal with them myself, that is. But I'll do it. It'll be just the two of us, away from everything, secluded. It'll be just between you and me, like it should be."

_I did_, Tony recalled the conversation very clearly, the scenery before him changing once more. _I did promise I would save her. I did promise I would be the one to… the one to…_

"I never thought it would end like this," Pepper's voice pulled him back to reality. Her back was resting against his chest, both of them on the ground at her island. "But you promised that you would kill me, right? You haven't forgotten your promise, have you, Tony?"

"No, I haven't," he said in a serious tone. "I promised I would do it. And I will do it, Pep. I will be the one to free you from them. From all of them."

"Then do it now. Do it _now_, Tony. Set me free. Keep me safe. _Kill _me."

"I will," his tone was even, as if he were just talking about the weather, his hands moving towards her head. "I will do what I must, Pepper. I'd do anything for you."

"Because you love me, Tony?"

"Yes," he pressed his fingers against her scalp. "Because I love you, Pep."

No sooner than the words left his mouth, he violently twisted her neck, letting her go only when she grew limp in his grip. He then stood up from sitting behind her, adjusted her dead body on the ground, and then silently admired his deed.

_ She's safe, _he smiled fondly at her._ She's free. She's… dead._

xxxXXXxxx

This time, she relied more on her aura abilities than on the suit or the castle's blueprints. Not surprisingly, she got back to the main chamber faster than the first time around. And, just like the first time she had arrived here, she remained in the shadows to assess how much the situation had changed.

Whoever was left standing was still battling Doom. Tony was still on the ground near Jarvis's body. And where Maya Hansen and James Stark had been, there was nothing more than a pile of debris.

_Jimmy, where are you?_

She could sense that her son was alive, but she could not tell exactly where he currently was. She did not want to rush into the chamber again, lest Doom decided to send another surprise attack her way. Her armor had warned her that the intangibility feature was a one-off – something that would not save her a second time if her shield gave in.

Pepper frowned in deep thought, her eyes on the spot where she had almost lost her life. Whether it was smart or not, she _had_ to walk over to the mountain of rubble that Doom's attack had left behind and _dig_ through it. She could feel that James and Maya were somewhere near it; she just had to pinpoint their actual location within the mass.

She looked towards her right to see that everyone seemed to be busy fighting their enemy, so she rushed towards the wreckage and began scanning and rummaging through the remains. To her surprise, a lot of the concrete and stone parts easily turned to dust in her hands as soon as she touched them; mostly due to the heat from the blast. Pepper was certain that, if sand had been nearby at the moment of the attack, she would be digging through glass right now.

It was not long after she had begun plowing that she found Maya Hansen under the rubble, her back facing the redhead. Hope rising in her, she increased her digging efforts to uncover most of Maya's head and shoulders. And she then inwardly gasped when she exposed the rest of the brunette's form.

Rescue opened her faceplate, covered her mouth with her hands, and then exhaled through her fingers. There was no doubt that the botanist had not made it. There was no reason to believe that the woman had been blessed with a final miracle when she needed it the most. Now she knew why she had sensed a change in the number of auras and their patterns after she had gone through the floor. Now she knew what it felt like when someone's aura ceased to exist.

The once-promising geneticist's final act had been a selfless one: she had taken a hit for James Howard Stark. Just as Edwin Jarvis had taken a hit for the father of her kid.

To properly thank her, there was nothing that Pepper could do for her now; she had already disposed of Aldrich Killian – she could not make him suffer more or again. Perhaps all she could do for Maya at the moment was ending this war. Saving the world. And then perhaps taking her and her mother's bodies back home.

As careful as she could be, Pepper moved Maya's body to the side to reveal the current location of her child. He was unconscious and burnt, but just as she had witnessed during their trek to the _playroom_, the ginger could already see the signs of Extremis kicking in to repair the damaged tissue. His body was not regenerating as easily or as quickly as it had when his arms had been chopped off by one of Doom's traps, but she knew that her son was going to be alright if she managed to get him out of here before the _Earth Movers_ went off.

She pressed her son tightly against her body, turned around in place to face the battlefield, and then screamed a single name towards the crowd.

xxxXXXxxx

_"KURT!"_

His vision started clearing up with every hard blink of his electric blue orbs. The sounds of battle around him gradually came together to form a discernible picture in his mind. For a moment, he was unsure of where he was – of _who_ he was, and of what he was supposed to be doing right now. However, with every passing second, his brain slowly began piecing together his reality for him.

He was Tony Stark.

_The_ Tony Stark.

And he had a very important mission to complete.

He inconspicuously eyed the woman that was half holding him, half propping him up. She was too distracted watching something in the distance to notice that he was aware of his surroundings once more. He became instantly curious as to what was capturing her attention with such intensity, and he considered _maybe_ making the effort to find out for himself. This decision was then made for him, however, when he heard that voice once more.

_"Take him! Now!"_

Tony turned his head to his side, just in time to see Nightcrawler grab something from Pepper Potts and then disappear half a second later. He had expected the man to reappear shortly thereafter. Yet, after several seconds of no action – and after seeing that the redhead was now coming towards him – he understood that the members of the resistance where short yet another soldier. There was now one fewer person to stand against the might of Doom.

_Who cares?_ The genius thought with both utmost disinterest and disdain. _Whatever we do, it doesn't matter, anyway. Doom will kill us all. Kill. Us. All._

"But not Pepper," the whispering of his random afterthought caught Whitney Stane by surprise. "Not. Her."

"Tony?" Whitney smiled at the man. "Tony! You're back!"

"Not Pepper," the inventor repeated as he slowly sat up, his eyes staring directly at the incoming form of Rescue, completely disregarding the confused blonde sitting next to him.

"She's mine… I'll take care of her. _I_'ll save her from life."

"Tony?" Whitney furrowed her brow, his words making no sense at all. "What are you… Are… are you alright?"

The billionaire snapped his head to his right, narrowed his eyes at the blonde, and then backslapped her with such force that she ended up face down. The move was then followed by the blue-eyed man standing up and locking eyes with a shocked-still Rescue, her jaw practically hitting the ground.

"Nobody threatens her," he took a decisive step towards his wife. "Nobody touches her," he took another step. "Nobody ends her life."

_ If someone's going to kill her_, he clenched his hands in anticipation, quickly closing the gap between them. _It'll be __**me**__._

"_Only_ me."

xxxXXXxxx

"Tony?"

She hesitantly stretched her right arm towards him, but she then pulled it back when he picked up his pace; his movements resembling a predator about to pounce on its prey.

"Tony, why did you–"

The redhead's question was cut short by Tony's hands on her neck, squeezing it tightly despite the protection of the suit.

"T-Ton-ny," Pepper was in shock, too stunned to properly react to the man's clear intentions. "Ton-n-y… it's… it's m-m-me…"

"AGH!"

She dropped to her knees when she felt his hold on her disappear. She took in deep breaths; her right hand around her neck to make sure it was still there, her eyes wide in disbelief. She was breathing hard, her gaze lost. Or as lost as it can be until one hears the sound of fierce scuffling just feet from where you are.

"Tony, snap out of it!" Whitney Stane said while she exchanged punches and kicks with the inventor. "It's Pepper! PEPPER!"

The genius did not verbally respond to the blonde – he just fought her back faster and stronger than he would normally do so; anticipating her moves quicker than she could think to change them. He was hardly physically responding to the hits she did land – it was as if he did not even feel them. It was as if they were actually fueling whatever blind rage he was in.

_Did Doom take over him?_ Pepper gnawed at her lip as she stood up and closed her faceplate to scan the genius. _Did Doom turn the Mainframe back on?_

While her theory was not too farfetched, given everything they had gone through so far, no one else appeared to be affected. She used her HUD to scan his chip, only to find it burned out. She then sought possible remains of the Mainframe's waves lurking around them, but she was quickly disappointed for being unable to spot any at all.

She looked over to where Doom was still battling with Mandarin, Black Panther and Jean Grey and, for a moment, the villain looked back at her and she swore that their eyes locked. Somehow she knew, from that one look, that it _was_ he who was responsible for this, if not _how_. She saw in those red orbs that served as windows to his soul, all of the cruelty, all of the _malevolence_ he held towards the world; his grudge against happiness and anyone who experienced it. If evil could kill by evil alone, she would already have been dead ten times over just from that one brief glimpse into his eyes. He might not have been controlling the love of her life, but he had triggered this violent behavior in the young man she shared her existence with. In that moment, she wished upon Doom the worst suffering imaginable for it.

"AAH!"

Exhausted from battle, Chameleon had not much left to give against the inventor. After a few well-placed hits from him, Whitney was down for the count. Tony stared at the unconscious woman on the ground for a moment, as if waiting for her to show signs of being ready for round two. However, when she continued to lie still, barely breathing, Tony turned his full attention to his wife once more.

"Tony," Pepper aimed her repulsors at him, if just to have something to use to deflect another attack from him. "Tony, what are you doing? Stop, please. It's just me. It's Pepper!"

"I'm going to keep my promise, Pep," the use of her nickname in such an offhanded manner in spite of the situation made her flinch. "I'm going to make sure I do right by you."

"Do right… by me?" Pepper took a step back, unsure of what scared her most: her husband, or the fact that she was becoming afraid of her husband. "What… what do you mean?"

"I'll do it, Pepper," he began slowly walking towards her. "I'll do it."

"You'll do: _what_?"

"What else?" he was in front of her in the blink of an eye, his hands on the sides of her helmet, effectively unlatching it from her. "I will kill you."

xxxXXXxxx

"NO!"

Her helmet fell to the ground, only to then be kicked out of the way by the inventor himself. He then reached for her neck once more, but the redhead took to the air. Tony looked up at her flying form for a second, then towards the discarded helmet, before he ran towards it at full speed.

_What is he doing?_

He skidded on his knees and grabbed the helmet. He put it on, waited for the SOS to recognize him, and then spoke into with a cold, calculated tone.

"Disable User: Rescue. Revoke SOS access. Permanently."

No sooner than the words left him, the flight stabilizers of the suit turned off. Simultaneously, the armor retracted into its backpack form, sending the ginger tumbling down from several feet above the ground.

"Aaaahhh!"

"Pepper!"

Iceman rushed to her aid, opting to ignore the losing battle against Doom on the other side of the chamber. He stretched his arm towards her, extended yet another bridge of ice, and she landed on it with a thud. Bobby's eyes then landed on the inventor, who he had just now realized was wide awake again, and it took him only two seconds to realize what had just taken place.

"Is he… oh, no…" Bobby turned to his friends. "Hey! Tony's lost it! He's trying to kill Red!"

For a brief second, the battle stopped. All eyes turned to the inventor, who was slowly taking off the Rescue helmet off him and was clearly seething in anger at the interference. He did not have time for this. He had a job to do. He could not waste time with anyone who tried to keep his wife alive long enough to meet a terrible death under the hands of Doom.

If he had to kill everyone else before getting to Pepper, he would gladly do so.

"Get away from him!" Jean said, her right hand on her temple. "Something's wrong. I can't reach him."

"Get her out of here!" Fury yelled at Bobby. "Get her out!"

"_NO_!"

The unexpected order was followed by a blast of energy that emanated from Doom himself, breaking the wall of ice that Bobby had been building around the redhead to aid in her escape. To ensure that his plans continued their path, Doom raised his arms in the air, screamed, and then opened a portal right above where he stood.

"No more games. No more mercy. The era of Doom begins now."

Just like that, to everyone's shock, the entire room became filled with creatures from other worlds.

xxxXXXxxx

"Charles, are you seeing this?" Magneto asked, unsure that what he was seeing was real.

_"I can feel it,"_ the Professor replied. The entire castle had become engulfed in a transparent force field.

This prompted Professor X to send a telepathic communication to the rest of the X-Men, who were currently on their way to Latveria via the team's jet, the Blackbird. He advised them to remain where they were, as the situation at Castle Doom was about to reach a critical point that would likely reach its resolution long before they arrived, and they would not be able to enter the structure now in any event. It was just as well, as the momentary activating of the Mainframe a while ago had nearly caused the aircraft to crash into the ocean.

He also took a moment to focus in on Nightcrawler, who was currently doing a series of teleports across the longest stretches of distance he could manage, carrying his precious cargo of James Howard Stark with him. He was already almost halfway across the European continent, and Xavier expected him and the boy to arrive here on Muir Island within the hour.

A moment after feeling the energy bubble engulf the castle, the ground then shook violently, as if an earthquake had suddenly struck the entire region. Once the tremors ended, the sky turned red and portals started appearing everywhere in the air and along the ground below, all of them spewing out abominations in droves. They were repulsive, maddening creatures: giant insects with their limbs in the wrong places, slimy reptiles with bodies pulsing more like jellyfish; humanoid beings with bat wings and black ichor dripping from their goddamn _eyes_. Both of the long-time frenemies had seen some bizarre things in their lives searching the globe for their fellow mutants, but these alien monstrosities Doom had summoned from God-knew-where were hard to look at.

_"This is it, Erik. It's the end,"_ Charles said with a tone of resignation and incredulity.

"So it is," Magneto replied, turned around in place and then, summoning all of the metal in the region that he could grasp with his power, he began to fight.

xxxXXXxxx

As soon as the creatures that Doom had unleashed began battling the others, Tony ran towards Pepper with a murderous look on his face. The woman inwardly gasped, looked left and right, and then began running away from him as fast as she could.

"Get back here!"

He caught up to her quicker than she had expected, and he wasted no time in further limiting her options for defense. He grabbed her by the backpack, viciously flung her to the side, and then released her in the direction of a wall. The backpack came off her as Pepper bounced off the target and landed on the floor, face down, the right side of her body burning in pain.

"Please, Tony," she slowly got on all fours, breathing hard. "Please, stop… please…"

"Don't fight it," he walked over to her, cracking his knuckles as he did so. "It'll only hurt more. I'll make it quick and painless, I promise."

The redhead shook her head left and right, her left hand pressed against the wall behind her to help herself stand up.

"Tony, this isn't you. You're not… you're not thinking straight. I mean, listen to yourself! You want to kill me? _Kill_ me? You would never do that, Tony! You would never do that!"

"It's for your own good," he towered over her, leaving her between him and the wall. "I'm only doing this to protect you."

"How the heck is _that _protection?"

"Nobody can hurt you… if you're already dead."

From the corner of her eyes, she noticed that Tony was raising his hands again, and she knew what he was trying to do. She knew that he had every intention to do what he had just said he would. She did not know why he was so determined to do this – she blamed Doom for it, in fact. But she also knew that, whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to fight back.

She stared him in the eye, gave him a weak, trembling smile, and then blinked tears away.

"I'm sorry, Tony. But I can't let you do this."

Without warning, Pepper punched him in the stomach with her right hand, then on his chest with her left fist, and finally on his chin with her right fist again; the triple-hit combo forcing him to take a few steps back from her. She then pivoted on the floor to sweep him off his feet, and ran towards the forgotten backpack on the other side of where she had just stood.

She knelt before the backpack, rummaged through the pockets, and then found what she was looking for. She eyed the syringe in her hands, thought about Maya Hansen's words, closed her hand on the item, and then sighed.

Was this the only way? Was this all she could do to save herself? To save him? Was this really the only choice she had? She clearly would not survive long against Tony in a fist-to-fist fight – he was much stronger and more experienced in battle than she was, even with his Extremis turned off. But she also did not have the guts to kill him… especially if there was no good reason to do that.

But what if that was the trick? What if Maya had lied to her? What if Maya had orchestrated all of this, just to have Pepper kill her own husband as a last act of revenge?

Then again, the brunette had sacrificed herself for her son. In the end, Maya Hansen had kept her son alive, even if it had cost her life. It just did not make much sense for the woman to try to off them both after protecting their son, all these months. Then again, _again_: nothing in their entire eccentric lives had ever made sense. Maybe this was yet another oddity for them.

_No_, Pepper closed her eyes tightly and shook her head_. I can't risk it. I can't just inject him with whatever this is!_

Memories of Aldrich Killian's reaction to being injected with differing strains of Extremis further clouded her judgment. She definitely did not want Tony to blow up or suffer in the same way her biological father had met his demise. She did not want to lose her husband, either, or for her son to grow up without his dad.

_There must be another way,_ she told herself as she put away the syringe and began to stand up. _I just need to find it. I just need to–_

"AH!"

Tony grabbed her by the hair, pushed her knees back on the ground, and then pulled her head back, all in one swift motion. On instinct, Pepper's hands reached over her head, trying to release herself from his grip, but she could not even see where to aim her attempts to. She tried to turn around to face him. She tried to kick him from behind. She even tried to dig her nails into his skin to force him to let go of her, but he was relentless. Unyielding. He was not giving her an inch of a chance.

"Stop fighting it," he growled and scrunched up her hair in a way that made her whimper. "This is for the best!"

"Tony, no!" she felt him pull her head even more. "IT HURTS!"

"Only for a little while," he replied, knowing that, with one more swift pull, her neck would snap. "Just relax."

"NOOO!"

Tears pooled in her eyes when she felt the slight push and pull of his hand, readying for the final effort it would take to bend her neck in a way that would disconnect her brain from the rest of her body. He further twisted her hair against his hand, placed his left foot against her back, and then inhaled deeply to gain even more strength for the task he was about to set in motion.

Pepper closed her eyes, whimpered loudly, and then heard the sound of a single gunshot being fired nearby.

xxxXXXxxx

He felt a sharp sting in his right shoulder blade that made him hiss in anger more than in pain. He looked behind him to search for whoever had dared to take a shot at him; whoever had dared to interrupt him – and then narrowed his eyes at the second-in-command of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Get away from her, Stark!" Maria Hill spat, her arms to her front and extended towards Tony, a gun in her hands.

Tony eyed the woman up and down with contempt before he returned his attention to Pepper, as if he did not have an armed agent standing behind him.

"Stark! Stop!"

Before he could try to harm the redhead again, Maria Hill ran towards him and hit him in the back of the head with the butt of her gun. The genius groaned and stumbled to the ground, allowing Pepper to scurry away from him and turn around to face him once more. She watched as he angrily rubbed the back of his head with his left hand a few times. He then pulled his hand away, and growled when he saw the trail of blood on his palm.

Leaving Maria very little time to prepare, Tony stood up and engaged the agent in hand-to-hand combat. He punched and kicked her without mercy. He fiercely hit her until she was on her knees. And then, with one last punch to the face, Maria Hill became unconscious and fell at his feet.

xxxXXXxxx

Pepper awkwardly slid across the floor, trying without success to put as much distance between her and the blue-eyed man walking towards her; the loaded gun that Maria Hill had been holding now being in his right hand.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth hung, and her entire body shook, still unwilling to believe this was really Tony standing before her – coming at her with a weapon in hand. He had just taken down another person – another f_riend_, with no visible remorse. He had just tried taking his wife's life – twice. And he was now slowly approaching her with a gun pointed directly at her.

"One to the head and it'll all be over, Pep."

"Tony… please… please don't do this. What about our son? What about him?"

"I'll kill him, too," he reasoned. "Then I'll kill myself. And then we'll all be happy, Pep. We're only happy when we're dead."

Pepper frantically shook her head from side to side.

"What did he do to you? What… what did Doom do to you, Tony?"

"I see the truth now, Pepper. I see how stupid I was. I could've never protected you from everyone. I was never going to keep you safe all the time."

Tony finally stopped walking when he stood two feet away from her sitting form, her back pressed against the wall. He then aimed the barrel of the gun to her head and smiled compassionately at her.

"I'll see you on the other side, Pep," the genius said before pulled the trigger until he emptied the gun, hitting a body multiples times square in the chest.

xxxXXXxxx

Victor von Doom stared at the genius from afar and groaned. He had thought that the man had been tortured enough by the mind attack he had used on the inventor with his last strike upon him from before, but it appeared that he had not suffered as much as he thought he would. He should have killed the redhead by now. He should have completely lost his mind already. In fact, now that he thought about it, the rest of his team should have been dead by now, too; defeated either by him, the demons he had released, or by exhaustion, at the very least.

But this was not the case. They still remained.

They still stood and fought him.

They still defied his power and will.

And Tony Stark was yet to learn his lesson. He was yet to truly suffer to the level Doom wanted him to feel ache.

No. His first attempt at breaking the man's spirit had not been merciless enough.

He still owed the billionaire a lot more misery and pain.

xxxXXXxxx

She was not sure when she had closed her eyes. Yet, when she opened them again, she saw that Tony had truly emptied the rest of the ammunition in the gun… just not upon _her_.

The head of S.H.I.E.L.D. fell to his knees in front of her, his palms briefly landing on his bleeding chest. He coughed up blood, eyed the deadly wounds in his torso, and then glared at the inventor one last time.

"I warned you, son… I told you this… would happen."

"You're in the way," Tony coldly replied, no hint of repentance in his tone, before he grabbed Nick Fury's head in his hands and broke his neck.

xxxXXXxxx

He could not let this happen. He could not allow Doom to do this. _He_ was the one and true Mandarin. Earth was _his_ to protect. It was his job to make sure the entire planet lived to see another day.

And that Pepper did as well, for that matter.

Gene looked around himself to quickly assess the situation. The living offenses to reason that Doom had conjured were horrible looking and numerous, but relatively weak, and most of them had already been killed off by the team and were now liquefying on the stone floor of the castle. But the effort to defeat this final scourge summoned by the mad doctor had taken its toll on what was left of the resistance. Jean Grey had passed out in exhaustion just a moment ago. Cyclops was safeguarding her from the demons Doom had unleashed. Iceman could not move another inch, and even the Hulk, despite doing extensive damage to the enemy, had taken a break and left an unconscious Bruce Banner in its wake. Beast and Living Laser were doing their best to protect the two men. Everyone else, save for Tony and Pepper, was either dead or out of commission. It was now just down to Black Panther, Doctor Doom, and himself.

Or it had been, until a nanosecond ago, when Doom sent a final attack towards all of them.

Gene Khan gritted his teeth and got down on all fours, the intensity of the attack making him want to scream in agony; yet, he bit down on his tongue so strongly that he drew blood from it, refusing to give Doom the pleasure of knowing he was causing him agony.

Once the worst of it faded away, he slowly sat up, pointed towards the madman with his palms, and then grinned with arrogance behind his helmet.

"Is that all you've got? I can do this all day."

Without sparing the Mandarin a second to react, Doctor Doom rushed towards the half-Makluan with full force, all with the single goal of killing him dead once and for all.

xxxXXXxxx

The moment his hands let go of the General, the deceased man fell to the side. Tony briefly stared at the body with disinterest, as if he was watching a dead insect or pest. He then bent down to grab something from Nick's right boot, locked eyes with his stunned silent wife as she got up from the floor too, and he resumed his trek towards her.

He was near her in an instant, his face inches from hers. Pepper's eyes dilated, desperately searching for something – anything within him, that would tell her what she needed to do to make him come to his senses. Nevertheless, she was disappointed to find that Tony's aura had not changed one bit. It was practically intact. There was no visible external influence that she could see that could have been driving his words or actions. Whatever atrocious acts he had committed since waking up from his apparent trance, were all him.

All. Him.

Just as when he finally stabbed her in the heart with Nick Fury's knife any moment now; it would all be on her beloved blue-eyed boy.

All on him.

She slowly dug her right hand inside her pocket, held onto the syringe, and then watched as Tony's form was suddenly flown away from her, courtesy of a very angry Gene Khan.

xxxXXXxxx

"Dimwitted fool!"

Tony Stark had been so close. So damned close. But the Mandarin had foiled his plans, yet again.

How was he even still fighting? Everyone else had been defeated! Why did he remain?

It must have been the rings of power. No human could stand up to Doom and last this long. If Stark's wife had not messed with his power generator; if she had not meddled into matters that did not pertain her, his quantum-dot energy suppressor would still be working. If it had not been for that stupid redhead woman, it would be down to just the three of them by now: Tony, Pepper, and him.

"Can't be much of a fool if you haven't been able to stop me," Mandarin replied, hoping that his attack had been strong enough to knock Tony out cold. He was unsure as to why the inventor was attacking his own wife, but there was not much time to stop and ask questions at the moment.

Doom returned his full attention towards the Mandarin, a sense of being close to succeeding at a life-long challenge driving his next attack. He knew that, even with his limited yet advanced technology currently at his disposition, it would still be tricky to stop the Mandarin altogether…

But when it came to hurting the man inside the suit, the doctor knew that it would not take much. He still had one more card to play against Gene Khan – a final ace in the hole that he knew would stop the Mandarin in his tracks.

The time for pulling all the stops had lastly arrived.

"We shall see about that, Gene Khan," Doom replied with a frown. "We shall see about that."

xxxXXXxxx

The attack that Gene had delivered had slowed him down, but it had certainly not stopped him. Sooner rather than later, the inventor was back on his feet and in front of Pepper once again, his face turned into one of pure rage at being kept from doing what he believed he had to do next. He had tried to reason with her – explain to her that this was the only way for him to keep his promise to her. He had already attempted to make her see the flawlessness of his plan. The brilliance of it all. But she refused to see logic – just as she always did. She refused to take orders from his smarter, more rational brain.

And now, at this this critical point in the game, he had no intention of wasting his breath any more. Mandarin would surely be disposed of any moment by the madman, he knew; which would then leave Doctor Doom free to release all of his power on her.

Did she not understand that he knew better? Did she not see how pointless it was to fight something as inevitable as death?

He was done trying to make her see his way was best. He just had to do things the hard way now.

He lunged himself at the ginger and aimed a punch at her face. Pepper moved her head to the side to avoid the hit, but he quickly reacted to her evasive maneuver with a knee to her stomach. She moaned and almost fell to the ground in pain, but she knew that she had to keep herself alive long enough to find a way to make him realize what he was doing to her. She refused to believe that he would beat her to a pulp until she died if he truly understood what he was doing to her. She refused to believe that he_ really_ wanted to check her out of this world.

This was the last trick up her sleeve – save for the one that Maya Hansen had left behind with her. Maybe Tony was not _completely_ processing what he was doing. Maybe, if his mind cleared somehow and he saw that he was attacking his own wife, he would finally stop.

Or so she could hope he did.

Forcing herself to see the man before her as yet another enemy to be stopped, she began giving as many hits from him as she was taking.

He grabbed her by the arm and kicked her in the stomach, a move she knew was meant to set in motion a shoulder-dislocating attack. Training with Gene for months had prepared her for this, so she was able to execute a counter-maneuver to prevent him from finishing the exchange. She then responded by slamming the heel of her right hand against his nose, but he was to dodge it at the last second.

He took hold of her wrist and used it to twist her in place, embracing her in a chokehold to minimize her ability to fight back. She groaned in frustration as she tried to set herself free by shaking, kicking and trying to elbow him, but he did not give her an inch. He strengthened his hold around her, making her ribs press together, and she knew that he was trying to break a bone – preferably one that could fatally puncture a vital organ inside of her.

She was starting to see dark spots all around her. The room was starting to spin. Her moves were becoming uncoordinated. Her legs were losing the ability to keep her on her feet. And just when she thought this was the end for her, she ignored all rules of honorable fighting and dug her teeth into his skin.

"AAAGH!"

He pushed her away from him in an instant, furious at her for the unexpected move. She scrambled to her feet, ran towards the backpack armor, picked it up, and then swung it at his head as hard as she could.

He fell on his face and cursed loudly, but he was the back up a second after that. Pepper continued to use the backpack to keep some distance between them, but even she was growing tired of the back and forth. For his part, Tony showed no signs of slowing down, let alone stopping, and in one of her backpack-swinging attempts he was able to snatch the would-be weapon from her hands.

He ran towards her and she purposefully fell to her back, using the momentum of his speed against him. She grabbed him by the shoulders, kicked him up in the air, and then sent him flying off above and beyond her head. She got back on her feet a moment later, but he was quicker than she had expected him to be. Two seconds after she had just propelled him away, she found herself being slammed against the wall once more.

He circled her neck with his right hand and then tried to pin both of her hands above her head. The attempt at getting her in that particular position brought memories of intimate moments between them, which almost caused her to hesitate. At the last second, she was able to snatch away her right hand from his grip, but he was still able to hold her left hand above her head.

She tried to make him physically uncomfortable with her right hand, but he appeared to be unaffected by her constant poking and prodding of his face. The more she tried to provoke the slightest discomfort in him, the more his hand pressed against her neck. The more she tried to wiggle herself free, the more he dug his nails against the wrist of the one hand he still had control over.

She was losing it. She was losing the final battle. She was going to die because of him.

"Tony," she gasped. "Tony… please…"

Her words appeared to further anger him, since his only response to her pleas was applying more force to his grip.

"T-Tony… I… I… please…"

The genius narrowed his eyes at her, as if he was more than just a little annoyed by her voice. He then put even more weight into his task by pressing his body against hers, limiting that much more her ability to take in the air she so desperately needed to live.

The tears were starting to cloud her vision. Her right hand aimlessly patted at his head. Her sense of self-preservation was starting to kick in. The Extremis within her was starting to lose its patience. It was starting to send her to that place she had been to before: a state of mind in which she did not distinguish friend from foe. A side of her that she knew would not hold back and would take Tony down with her.

Even with all these conflicting sensations and emotions; even with so much at stake and with little time to stop what she knew was to come, a memory of one of their many conversations flooded her mind. A moment in time when she had made a promise to him…

A promise that she had never ever wanted to see fulfilled.

"_Pepper…"_

"_No, Tony!" she snapped her eyes open. "Don't ask me to do this! I can't!"_

"_I know you can," he whispered to her and she closed her eyes again. She could not face him, not like this. He was breaking her resolve. She was going to give in to his request. She could feel it. She knew he was right. She knew what he was saying made sense. That did not mean she had to accept it._

_He shut his eyes when the silence extended, rested his forehead against hers and then spoke softly to her. _

"_Don't let me hurt you. If Doom takes over me, don't let me hurt you."_

"_Tony–"_

"_Promise me."_

"_But, Tony…"_

"_**Promise**__ me, Pepper."_

"_I…" she hesitated. "I promise."_

"_On our son," he insisted. "Promise me on our son."_

_The redhead opened her eyes slowly, pulled away from his face and locked eyes with him. They remained quiet for an instant, and when her eyes dilated for a short nanosecond, Tony recognized she was reading him._

_What she saw there, she did not like._

_There was desperation – a crippling need for reassurance. He expected her to make good on her promise. He expected her to follow through with her mission, no matter what. He expected her to make the call, if it came to that._

_What else could she have done, but to agree to it? How else would she have been able to calm his fears?_

"_I promise," she finally said with a nod. "I promise, on Jimmy."_

She closed her eyes tightly, wanting to forget that moment had ever taken place. She wanted to pretend that it had never happened – that he had never forced her to make that promise. She wanted to think that it was just her mind playing tricks on her. She wanted to believe that it was the lack of oxygen just getting to her.

But she knew better. She knew that she was not making it up due to being at death's doorstep. She _had_ told Tony that she would keep him from hurting her. She _had_ promised him that she would not allow him to go on with his life knowing he was the reason why she no longer lived.

And even if she had not remembered this pact between them, Extremis was ready to do for her what it did best: keeping her alive – no matter what it took.

She opened her eyes and blinked away the tears; the hazel in her eyes completely overlapped by her dilated irises – the only warning anyone got before she lost herself to the innate enhancements in her genes. She gave the inventor one last moment to redeem himself; to prove to her that he had no idea what he was doing to her and that all he really needed was help – not death. Yet, just as it had been the case when she had searched his aura for the slightest hint that he had not meant his words when he had asked her to kill him to save her own skin, what she found in him at the moment was not what she had been looking for. It was not at all what she had wanted to see.

It finally hit her. She could see it all over in his aura. She could see it all over his face. He knew what he was doing. He really knew what he was doing. He _wanted_ to finish up what he was doing. He truly and absolutely wanted her dead.

_Tony_…

She swallowed hard when she realized what she had to do to stop him. She held back a whimper of utter defeat.

He _knew_ what he was doing.

And she now knew what _she_ had to do next.

"I love you, Tony," she somehow managed to whisper to him, tears freely streaming down her face like rivers. She ran the back of her free hand against his cheek, felt his hold on her neck increase as a result of it, and she then lowered her right hand to dig inside her pocket; blindly and desperately clinging onto a false sense of hope and redemption that never came.

xxxXXXxxx

It was only a microsecond – shorter than it took to blink an eye – but it had been there. It had existed: the instant had been given life. It had been but a minor distraction; a moment of hesitation. A swift yet costly slip of the mind.

It had been practically insignificant in duration, but it _had_ been there.

And this was all it took for Doom to strike. This was all it took to break the Mandarin's last line of defense. Great things came to those who waited for them – and a patient man Doom truly was.

Gene had turned his eyes towards the redhead for a second, fearing he was not going to prevent her from dying at the hands of Tony Stark. He had focused all of his attention on her – on watching as she fought for her life. His gaze had then returned to the ruler of Latveria, only to find him gone.

_What?_

Before the Mandarin had an opportunity to use his abilities to track the whereabouts of the man, an image of what he knew to be a farce hit his mind.

_Pe… Pepper?_

He watched her, clear as day, as she writhed in unbound pleasure beneath him. One second, he had been trying to find Doom. The next, he found himself in his bed, lying atop the naked redhead; flushed, sweating, and moaning his name.

_"Oh, yes!"_ her voice was loud and distinct in his head, her hands scrunching the sheets beneath her. _"Oh, Gene!"_

"Pepper?" he exhaled, his eyes on her head as she threw it back, her eyes shut tightly, and her mouth open to take in deep breaths. He could even smell her natural scent permeating him. He could feel the heat radiating from her onto him.

He knew it was not real. He knew this had never happened. He knew it would _never_ happen.

But that did not keep him from letting his guard down. That did not keep him from wishing it were true.

And this was how and why the Mandarin was forced back to reality… this was how he ended up with his heart ripped out of his chest; his eyes staring at the organ in disbelief while his body came to the realization that the main pump was gone. Both metaphorically and literally. Both in his soul and in his brain.

"Your luck has run out, Mandarin," Doom hissed from behind Gene, his metal arm sticking out from Gene's chest, straight through his armor. "I take your insignificant life today."

Doom's words meant nothing to him. His life slipping away did not scare him as much as he thought it would. What truly filled him with utter fear was the look of resignation on the redhead's face as she ran a hand down the inventor's face. What actually flooded him with regret was the fact that he would not be around anymore to tell her how he felt. Not with a stolen kiss or with implied phrases – but with the uttering of three simple words he had never had the courage to say.

Then again, he had one final chance to ensure her safety. He had one last trick up his sleeve. It was Doom himself who had given him the idea, having summoned those demonic obscenities from some other realm, and making the Mandarin realize now, in this moment, that he could perform similar magic.

Before said glimpse of hope left him, his right hand grabbed hold of Doom's wrist – the same hand that still held his heart in it. He used half of the rest of his slipping strength to keep Doom's arm where it was, and used the other half to call onto one final use of his rings.

He spared Pepper one last glance, closed his eyes as she stabbed the genius in the neck with what looked to be a syringe, and he then called upon a particular ring of his. As the ring that contained the Darkforce began to shine, Doom's vast powers of calculation must have caused him to realize at the last moment what Gene Khan intended, and knew that he had finally made an error; one he had no time to correct. In a sudden and uncharacteristic panic, Doom attempted to wrench his arm free of the younger man's torso through which he had plunged it, but Gene held fast.

"No! Release me! Release Doom this instant!"

"_You're_ doomed, fucker," Gene responded smugly, keeping his final thoughts on his destination while simultaneously replaying his last glimpse at Pepper behind his eyelids. An instant later, both he and Doom were bathed in a deep purple light that seem to shine from within them both – a light that quickly ratcheted up through the spectrum until it was pure white, consuming every atom in their bodies as Gene Khan prepared to quark off to _the Void_.

In a final blinding flash, followed an instant later by a very loud blast of sound, all those who left fighting the last remaining demons and Doombots, and those who were just now barely coming around to consciousness, all looked in time to see the final sight… all but Tony and Pepper, who were too busy locked in a dance of death to see how it all finally ended. When the light cleared and the sound faded, all those who took that last glance knew that, other than a little bit of mopping up, it was over.

Doctor Doom was gone.

And so was the Mandarin.

xxxXXXxxx

The nanobots took effect almost immediately, very much so as they had done with Killian, and prompted Tony to release Pepper from his death grip.

"AAAHHHH!"

He could feel the liquid coursing through his veins. It was much worse than when he had first injected himself with Extremis, and it was taking much longer than it had taken to wrap up back then. His legs gave up under him; the weight of his own body being too much to bear, and his body began convulsing against his will.

_Tony!_

The scene was worse than she had imagined it could be. She had hoped that he would just fall asleep in an instant. Perhaps groan loudly in annoyance and then hit the ground. But this was not what she had wished for him. This was much more painful and heart-wrenching than she had believed it would be.

The billionaire ended up on his knees, his nails urgently scratching at his neck to the point that he tore his skin. He threw his head back in anguish. He started gasping for air. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and, after a loud and long scream of pain, his eyes finally closed and he collapsed onto the floor.

"No! NO!"

Pepper knelt beside him and held him in her arms. She pressed her body against hers, whispered heartfelt apologies to him, and begged for him to come back to her. She was at a loss. Afraid of whatever damage she might have just caused him, and wished she could undo what she had done.

But she could not. It was too late. The serum was already inside of him. It was already working within him. It had already done its job. Extremis was partly working within her, if just because she was on high alert due to the state of the man he loved.

"I'm sorry, Tony! I'm so sorry! Please, don't die on me! Please, don't die!"

It was all too familiar for her; the situation hitting too close to home. It was just like when he had flat-lined on her after taking him out of the frozen lake and she had had to wait for the paramedics to come help him. It was like that moment he had risked his life to save hers. But this time, it was a lot worse. Much, _much_ worse. This time, he has not chosen to suffer to protect her: she had actually _caused_ it. This time, she could_ feel_ his body growing limp in her arms. She could _sense_ his aura slipping away. She was losing him. She was losing him all over again. For good, this time.

"Don't give up, Tony. Don't you dare give up! Fight it, Tony! Oh, please, God! Help him fight it!"

She could hear his breathing attempts become sharp and painful. The time between breaths was becoming longer and longer by the second; as if he were waiting for permission from his lungs to inhale yet again. His chest was not rising as high as the previous attempt at filling himself with the oxygen he needed to live. His body was no longer convulsing. His eyes were wide open and his eyelids still.

She whimpered when she heard him exhale the last of the air within him. She sobbed when his eyes remained opened and glazed. She pressed her forehead against him, closed her eyes tightly, and then began doing aloud what Maya Hansen had told she needed to do throughout the wait.

"10 Mississippi…"

_Without needing to utter a word since her arrival, the couple's lips inevitably found each other, and they began slowly kissing. His left hand rested on the back of her neck, his right hand on the small of her back, and he pulled her body flush against his own. The ginger circled his neck and shoulders with her arms, tiptoed to better reach his lips and, a second after feeling this, her feet left the floor._

_Next thing she knew, she was sitting on the vanity, with Tony standing between her slightly parted legs. His hands abandoned their current locations on her body to explore the rest of it, despite how many times he had previously mapped her curves with his pores. Just as with anything that merit learning, he would always discover something new that would set her off – something new that he enjoyed doing with her, or to her; no matter how many times before they had been together like this._

_She bit on his lower lip, ran her tongue on his upper lip, and then took her mouth to his left earlobe. She nibbled on it both carefully and hungrily, all the while her hands began removing some of the fabric barriers between them. He did what he could for her clothes as well. He felt her lips trailing down from his ear to his neck, and he took the opportunity for his hands to slide under her blouse, up and down her chest a few times, and then unclasped her bra. Once the popping sound of the garment opening was heard, he wasted no time in removing both it, and her blouse, from her._

"9 Mississippi…"

"_You're so quiet, Tony," she whispered in his ear and he felt a shiver of pleasure run down his spine. "Already bored at your own wedding, Mr. Stark?"_

_ "Not at all, Mrs. Stark," he teased, loving the way the title rolled off his tongue. "Just wondering if we could ditch the rest of the party and go straight to the honeymoon."_

_ Pepper pulled away from him, her mouth opened wide._

_ "Ditch the rest of the party? You mean ALL of the party, right? It hasn't even really started yet, Tony!"_

_ "It hasn't," he feigned ignorance, a wide smile on his face. "Well this is taking forever, if you ask me. We've got a very comfortable bed that needs to see some use."_

_ "Tony," she said with embarrassment, rested her forehead against his shoulder, and he chucked in response._

"8 Mississippi…"

_Tony grabbed Pepper's left hand in his, and he slowly slid the ring onto her finger as he softly yet clearly said his part of the vows. _

"_I, Tony, give you, Pepper, this ring as an eternal symbol of my love and commitment to you."_

_As soon as Tony finished, Pepper mimicked his moves and also took his left hand in hers. _

"_I, Pepper, give you, Tony, this ring as an eternal symbol of my love and commitment to you."_

_The officiant smiled once the rings were in place, and he then turned to the crowd. _

"_And now, by the power vested in me, I hereby pronounce you: husband and wife. Anthony, you may kiss your bride." _

"7 Mississippi…"

"_Tony… what… uhm… I… I thought… my dad…"_

_He lightly shook his head at her and he held the left side of her face in his hand. His thumb lovingly stroked her cheekbone a couple of times, his eyes stared deeply into hers, and he then chanced a quick kiss on her lips that she did not return but did not stop either. He then pulled back from her face and, while still holding to her cheek, he used his free hand to touch the baby's clenched fist and rubbed the soft newborn skin._

_His left hand then mimicked his right one, pulled her to him, and kissed her again, longer and deeper. She returned the kiss this time around, albeit with some hesitation, brought on by the shock of seeing him here when she had been sure he would never speak to her again. When the kiss ended, he wiped some of her tears with his thumbs, and as they stared into each other's eyes, he finally spoke._

"_Are you two ready to come home, Pep? Place feels huge without you."_

_She bit her tongue to keep herself from weeping in happiness and relief, and instead gave him a nod and a smile. _

"_If you're ready to take us in… if this is really what you want, then yes. We're ready to come home with you."_

_Tony smiled at her, wiped away the rest of her, now happy, tears with his hands and then pressed their foreheads together, forcing them both to close their eyes. _

"_This is what I want, Pepper. This is what I've always wanted. It might have come to me sooner than expected, but it still is what I want." _

"6 Mississippi…"

_Despite the song being foreign to her and this being the first time she had ever heard of it, she became immediately aware that what the band was singing and what Tony was currently whispering in her ear were not the same words. At the start of the next set of lyrics, when he sung the first line, it appeared that his and the band's singing were going to match. However, when she realized that the final lyrics to the actual song only had three lines and he continued to sing even when the band was not doing so anymore, she became aware of the crucial moment that had finally arrived._

_**Give your heart and soul to me  
**__**And say you'll marry me  
**__**It's you, the one I want**_

_ Pepper's eyes filled with tears as she saw and felt him slide his palm back up to her hand, ring held tightly in between his fingers as he readied to slide it on the appropriate finger of her left hand. He then stared deeply into her eyes, still swaying them to the wordless tune of the melody, and continued singing his version of the song._

_**And if you want to marry me  
**__**Just go and say 'I do'  
**__**And let everyone know the one I love is you**_

"5 Mississippi…"

_Knowing that the pancakes still had a few more minutes to fully cook, Pepper turned around and rested her arms on his shoulders and continued their dance. Tony's grip on her hips tightened and he took a step closer toward her to make their virtually tuneless dance work. After realizing he was having a difficult time following her lead without listening to the song, she took out one of the wireless earpieces from her ear and placed it in one of his. Tony immediately adjusted his movements to lead the redhead into a more graceful dance._

_Within seconds, they were moving as one and ended up in the middle of the kitchen. With more room to move, Tony began twirling with the ginger only to force her to have to press herself against him even further to keep her balance and from falling on her butt. As the song was coming to an end, the inventor pressed the side of his face to hers before making them both twirl in fast spins. His left hand rested behind her back to keep her steady and his right arm shot up straight to the side with hers mirroring it. With every crazy spin he put them through, her fingernails dug deeper into his skin. When the song finally ended, he stopped their rotating motion, but he did not let go of her. _

"4 Mississippi…"

"_Is that the only reason why you wanted to tell me?" he probed._

_ "Is that the only reason why you kissed me?" she spat._

_ "I kissed you because I wanted to."_

_ "Well, I was going to tell you because I wanted to, too!" she was beginning to shout now; the intensity he loved so much about her finally showing its face._

_ "I want to kiss you right now," he smirked._

_ "Well, I'm not sure I want you to kiss me right now," she said in a final attempt to save face but her tone and her eyes staring down at his lips betrayed her true feelings, giving him back his confidence and the final push he needed to make his next move._

"_Well, tough luck," he said and he pressed his lips on hers. His kiss was soft and slow, both savoring every second of it while it lasted. When he finally pulled back it was not all the way; his face was still inches away from hers, and they were both breathing hard._

"3 Mississippi…"

"_Can I just say one thing to you?"_

"_You could, but there's something I'd like to say to you first."_

"_Huh, another diversion, hey?"_

_She watched him nod, the start of a smile on his face. She feared he was going to reject her. Tell her that they were better off as friends. But he surprised her by placing his right hand on her lower back and planting a tender yet strong kiss to her left cheek._

"_Oh, Tony," she managed to say before they both wrapped the other in a tight embrace, finally realizing that he felt for her the same way she felt for him._

"2 Mississippi…"

_She almost choked on her sandwich when she saw him walk through the access door and towards the roof. She knew that he had joined the Tomorrow Academy today, had already shared a class with him in fact, but she had not expected to have a chance to meet him one-on-one just yet. He looked so lost and confused, his eyes fixed on something beyond the boundaries of the academy, and her interest was instantly piqued._

_She silently watched him lose himself in whatever was crossing his mind, his shoulders slumping in defeat. She then followed the possible path his eyes were taking, and it was then she realized what he was staring at._

"_Your dad used to work there," the words left her before she could stuff her mouth with enough food to not make a fool of herself._

"_What?" he looked taken aback, obviously just now becoming aware that he was not alone on the roof._

"_You're Tony Stark."_

"1…"


	19. The Last Chapter

**The Last Chapter**

_"Today marks yet another anniversary of the start of what has been aptly named: The Doom War. While lasting no more than three months, the devastating results of the late Dr. Victor von Doom's attempt at taking over the planet are still felt around the world today. Thousands of mourning people worldwide gathered at the memorials to remember the loved ones lost during the initial day of the tragedy or throughout subsequent events…"_

_ Thousands, _the redhead thought bitterly as the news reporter's voice continued in the background with her rather extensive late-night coverage of the attacks.

_First, there'd been billions mourning, then millions, and now thousands._

How quickly people moved on.

Why could she not do the same?

Her eyes returned to the television screen, even though she knew what she was about to see. It was the same bullshit reporting every time. The same unnecessarily convoluted and chopped-up story that had been portrayed since telecommunications had been restored to major cities and everyone had started pointing fingers at everyone else. She was not certain why she allowed herself to watch these poorly-researched documentaries. They hardly ever changed. Flawed theories, false reports, and even personal attacks against the _Saviors of the World_ were always present. From what could have been done better, to what the critics and experts would have done in their place; there was always something new or recently discovered that came to the surface – and most of the media used these false accusations to do what they did best: manipulate the masses and keep people angry and afraid.

What if another madman tried a similar stunt?

What if another group of vigilantes took it upon themselves to save the world?

What if the actions of these vigilantes had been more trouble than what they were worth?

Her gaze lowered to the floor.

In hindsight, every critic, every military expert, every government agency and, sometimes, even full-of-themselves celebrities just _knew_ with absolute certainty what would have been the best plan of action to prevent or end Doom's war. In hindsight, everyone was better suited and qualified to do a superior job than the one the _Saviors of the World_ had performed. And that was not even touching upon the _Stark Death Scandal_, as it had come to be known, when it was revealed to the world that the two young CEOs had not perished in a plane explosion as everyone had believed. Everyone had a little conspiracy theory and something to say about _that_ situation, too.

In hindsight, Pepper Potts-Stark would have let these morons do everything they thought was best, if only to watch them fail miserably when executing their ill-constructed plans.

_They_ had not been there. _She_ had.

_They_ had not lost half of their heart that day. _She_ had.

_They_ would never understand what sacrifices the members of the resistance had made to save the world. _She_ did.

_"Plans to rebuild Central Park are being discussed by city officials, and Stark International has been at the forefront of the talks. Stark Solutions has also expressed interest in financially supporting the cause, but only after their efforts of supporting the developing countries still stricken by the attacks is complete. CEO and Co-owner of multinational corporation Stark Solutions, Patricia Potts-Stark, issued a written statement in which…"_

"Pepper?" his gentle voice made her look up from the floor, but not at him. She did not have the energy to face his disapproving gaze, so he pressed on.

"Pepper, why are you watching this shit?"

"I don't know," she lazily shrugged.

Rhodey sighed loudly, finished putting on his t-shirt, walked over to the living room, sat next to the redhead, and then held her hands in his.

"Sweetie, you gotta stop doing this to yourself. Just come back to bed, OK? You know the media ain't never gonna wanna get it right. They just don't care for it. The truth doesn't sell. Tragedy does."

Pepper smiled resentfully at his statement, finally locked eyes with him, and spoke after a shuddering sigh.

"If tragedy sells, and if the media knew the real story – what really happened in Latveria, they'd sell more than they do now."

xxxXXXxxx

_After she had finished her countdown and had witnessed nothing happen, no change in the blue-eyed genius's condition, she had thrown herself upon her husband's body and refused to let go. The others had gathered around her, slowly recovering from their own injuries, carefully carrying those who were still unconscious, and Maria Hill had called in a transport to come pick them up._

_ Once it was clear that everything had calmed down, Magneto had used his power to rip away a large portion of the castle, allowing the group to gather their comrades and exit the forsaken structure without having to find their own way. They had expressed to the mutant villain their reluctant but genuine gratitude for his assistance outside the castle, and after returning his own, equally reluctant well-wishes to them, he had flown off for parts unknown, living by his word to his friend Charles Xavier that he would cause no trouble for the group on this occasion. They had been troubled enough._

_She was not sure how long she had waited there on the ground, holding Tony's motionless body in her arms, although she knew it could not have been long. She was not sure how much time had passed since they had pried his stiff form from her grip, let alone where on Earth the Quinjet was flying them above now. The only thing she could recall with any clarity was that, about half an hour after the aircraft had taken off, all of the windows had filled with the bright light of a massive explosion far behind them; the __**Earth Movers**__ finally detonating, erasing the castle and taking a fair portion of the empty, nearby capital city with it. _

_Everything was so confusing and distorted after that – the voices, the faces; the reality of it all. She had no idea how much time had passed since the explosions, or where they were now, although she supposed they must have stopped at Muir Island at some point and then continued on towards North America. All that was truly real to her at the moment was her sleeping son's little beating heart, pumping rapidly against her pain-filled chest that refused to let go of hope._

_ Refused to welcome grief._

_ Although Nurse Owen was not here to force her into medically-induced unconsciousness to sleep away the never-ending pain, the sense of déjà vu was crippling to her soul. His skin had been clammy and cold. His eyes wide open, yet devoid of life. He had left this world, in her arms, by her hand. And she had no one to blame for it but herself._

_ Had she acted too rashly?_

_ Had she done the wrong thing?_

_ Would her son ever forgive her for what she had done?_

_ Would she ever forgive herself, even if no one accused her?_

_ She felt tears return and she closed her eyes, but only for a moment, as Whitney's voice snapped her back to her cruel life._

_ "Pepper?" the blonde began, "It's been a few hours since… and… We-we need to… __**freeze**__ them. But… you know, once it's done…"_

_ Agent Stane knew there was no need to finish her statement, so she opted to offer her help to hold and care for the child while the ginger was gone. Pepper stole one last look at her son, gently kissed his forehead, and then handed him to one of the women that had relentlessly helped her recover him from the depths of Latverian hell._

_ Pepper stood up from her seat, yet she did not look over her shoulder as she walked towards her destination. She did not have to do so to realize – to know, that all eyes were glued to her retreating form towards the back of the aircraft._

_ That was where they kept the recoverable bodies of some of those who had not made it, after all._

_ That was where they kept the body of Tony Stark._

xxxXXXxxx

"Mama?"

Both Rhodey and Pepper turned towards the hall to see James Howard Stark, in all his 26-month old glory, barely holding a blanket in one hand and a sippy cup in the other. Typically, when he was wide awake, he was not as shy or downcast as he looked right now. However, it was two hours past his bedtime, and while it appeared that he had slept some, his red face and eyes told the ginger what had happened, for the third time this week, to startle the comfort out of her son.

"Nightmares?" Pepper stood up from the couch and walked over to where her sniffling child stood.

"Yes, Mama," the toddler replied, as clearly and as confidently as a child of a much-older age would have done. The heir to Stark Solutions was, without a doubt, his father's son; the more time that went by, the more the boy surpassed the bounds that every child development book had set as normal milestones for growth and development in such a young child.

"Want to talk about it?" Pepper asked, hoping that verbalizing his fears would ease his doubts and help him get back to sleep, but the boy rapidly shook his head to dismiss the thought. He knew better than to tell her what he had dreamt about – what had woken him up in tears. Talking about his daddy always made his mommy sad. And he hated seeing his mommy cry.

"Do you want me to help you get back to sleep?"

"Please?" Howie replied, remembering clearly that his mother had taught him that, when you needed someone to do something for you, you always asked nicely for help by voicing that simple phrase.

Oh, if only his father was around right now to see what a good little boy he was turning out to be – how good he was with his mommy – just as he had promised his daddy he would be. If only his father had not left him and his mom all alone. If only his daddy had not been left behind in that place he used to call home.

How different his life would be!

xxxXXXxxx

_She rested her forehead against the metal door and closed her eyes while she gathered the courage she needed to face the truth. She knew what awaited her behind the entrance to the medical room of the largest Quinjet ever built, and that she had ever seen. A Quinjet that Tony had helped design – one that was reinforced with vibranium and could carry every member of the resistance back home after everything was said and done._

**Home**_, she thought dismally. Once again, and even though she had believed this would never be the case once more for her, she was not sure where __**Home**__ was._

_ People always said that home was where someone's heart was. Yet, currently, Pepper did not even know where her brain was. And she did not want to know, either, as she knew that once the brain fog began dissipating – once the rush of winning a war against the most powerful dictator on the planet wore away – all she would accomplish would be confirming that one cannot identify their home by using their heart, when one's heart is incomplete._

_ And an incomplete heart could never truly have a home._

_Her palm slammed against the digital scanner placed on the right side of the door. The device – clearly Stark-made – immediately recognized her handprint, uttered her superhero codename with a warm welcome, and unlocked the door for her. Her gaze was fixed onto the floor as she began slowly walking inside the room once the door slid open, raising her head only when she reached the location of the closest fallen member of the resistance: General Nicholas Joseph Fury._

_ Pepper's bottom lip trembled. Her eyes clouded in tears. And despite all the bad times with this individual she should have been invoking at the moment to keep her emotions in check, all she could focus on was the fact that the man before her had always been on their side – right until the bitter end._

_ "Asshole," she spat the insulting word with a tone that spoke of everything but harsh intent. "You could've told us you were dying to keep us safe!"_

_ But he had not. He had kept his illness to himself. Although she had been able to see his illness and had informed Tony of it, they had had no idea how long Fury had lived with his sickness or what use he had put it to. He had used it to bargain with Aldrich Killian – to make the mad scientist believe that the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. had his own personal agenda to fulfill, and that he cared nothing for the safety of the world he had been tasked to protect. He could have received treatment elsewhere. He could have retired and enjoyed the rest of his days in peace. But he had not. He had chosen to remain on duty. He had clung to his post. He had used his lack of health to gather intel; to make sure he died for a good reason rather than just because cancer was reaching his brain._

_ And he had died, in the end, for her._

"_Thank you," her hand pressed against his cold one. "General Fury: thank you."_

_ Her eyes remained on his face for a little longer, trying not to recall how he had stood between Tony and her, but it was impossible to do so. He was dead because of it – dead sooner than needed, at least._

_ All because of her._

xxxXXXxxx

"_CEO and Co-owner of multinational corporation Stark Solutions, Patricia Potts-Stark, issued a written statement in which she pledged to support the reconstruction of damaged landmarks on U.S. soil. But she also reinforced the well-known company goal to first help those who had been dislocated from their homes due to the decimation of major cities and entire countries, courtesy of the deranged actions of Dr. Victor von Doom."_

The continuation of the news anchor rehashing what he already knew to be partial lies became nothing but background noise as he forced himself to open the one book he had been avoiding perusing once again, as he had done for months on end. He was not sure why he kept putting himself through watching what the media said, or why he insisted on making a hypocrite of himself by sorting through old memories. Perhaps, it was just because he was adamant that more exposure to what had happened six months ago would be highly beneficial in his state. Or perhaps, it was just because he had nothing else to do.

Or, more truthfully than anything else he could pretend it to be, it was because he missed them both. So damn much.

xxxXXXxxx

_Her next stop was before the woman who had been through hell and back, more so than the redhead ever had been in her entire life. Being taken by Whitney, by Ghost, by the Maggia, falling from a ten-story building, finding out she had been given life just because she had been a failed science experiment, and losing her belongings and memories on multiple occasions, did not compare to what Maya Hansen had suffered through. She had been a prisoner without having to be locked up. She had been dragged into a world of crime and destruction without wanting to be part of it, and without having a choice in the matter. Her loved ones had paid with their lives for her failures; and her life had been cut short in her prime for standing up for what was right._

_ Her only real "crime?" Falling in love with Tony Stark._

_ From the four bodies currently being kept in this makeshift morgue, her body was the only one that was covered up to her chest with a blanket. Cleaning up the others' wounds had been a relatively easy task for Dr. Hank McCoy, at least in comparison to what the young woman's cause of death had been. Maya Hansen's body was the most damaged of them all, and had Pepper not seen the body herself when she had removed it from atop her son's body, she would have thought that the gorgeous brunette was simply taking a nap._

_ Other than some bruises and scratches on her once delicate facial skin, her face did not hint at all to the gaping hole that had once been her midsection. The lower half of her body was barely connected to her upper – it had taken four people to carry her to make sure she did not fall apart on her way to a gurney. What had not been disintegrated by Doom's attack from the back had been charred beyond recognition. Some parts of her legs still had tissue – other areas did not even have any bones left._

_ And to think that once, weeks ago, Pepper had tried to crush the woman's neck for taking her son away from her – for letting her think, for months, that he had passed away. And to think that, in the end, Maya Hansen was now dead just so that James Howard Stark was not._

_ Pepper's tears were renewed when only croaking sounds came out of her mouth. She had both boatloads to say and nothing at all on the tip of her tongue. This woman had been her friend; despite the unspoken romantic rivalry that had existed between them at some point in their lives. Even if some atrocious things had been done by her, they paled in comparison to what had been done __**to**__ her. And for years to come, Pepper would wonder if the only reason why her son had not truly died on the first try was because Maya had kept him alive – in Latveria – as long as she possibly could have._

_ "Thank you," the ginger finally said, unable to form any other words. _

_Although this expression did not symbolize how indebted she truly felt to her technical stepsister, at the end of it all, it did not matter what she told the brunette or how much Pepper apologized to the woman. In the end, at this moment, and for all eternity, Maya Hansen was long gone._

xxxXXXxxx

Rhodey waited patiently while Pepper returned from tending to her son. He leaned the back of his head against the top edge of the couch, closed his eyes, and sighed slowly and sadly. As little as this was his fault – the latest S.H.I.E.L.D. mission that General Maria Hill had assigned War Machine and Chameleon had been nothing but difficult and long – he still felt like a failure for falling asleep before Pepper had. He was supposed to be watching over her, not the other way around. She was the one that needed the comfort, not he.

Nevertheless, Pepper never really made it easy for someone to take care of her – at least not until she was about to burst into tears. Or at least not by anyone other than by Tony Stark.

And that was the problem Rhodey faced every day, ever since he had moved in with Pepper: he was not Tony Stark.

xxxXXXxxx

_"Jarvis," Pepper whispered the man's name while she ran the back of her hand down his cold face. "We should've never taken you with us. We should've made you stay behind."_

_ As much as Pepper wanted to think that the long-time friend and butler of the Stark family was going to simply remain cross-armed and completely uninvolved in the recovery attempt of her son, she knew that it was no one's decision but his to do what he had done. Pepper had pleaded with him, on more than one occasion, to return to the States with Bambi and everyone else. She had known that leaving the safety of Muir Island was not the best of options, but it was definitely better than heading to Latveria to fight._

_ "My son will miss you. I will miss you. We… we-we all will."_

**Except Tony**_, she thought with renewed tears. _**Except the man you died for. Except the man you died trying to protect.**

xxxXXXxxx

With a little help from her technique of aura manipulation, putting James to sleep had been easy to do. Once the little boy had been rid of his feelings of fear and guilt, he had quickly snuggled with his panda bear and had conked out. The ginger had watched him sleep for a few minutes, if just to be sure that he would no longer wake up scared in the middle of the night. And once he had begun suckling on his thumb in his slumber, she had rushed to the bathroom and she had locked herself inside.

As much as she would forever hate having no control over what she had been created to be, and of the abilities that came with it, it was in times like these that she thanked Gene for helping her learn how to heal others by using her powers to see what was wrong with them and replacing their emotional energy with hers. The only downside to this gift that Gene had failed to talk to her about before he had died, she had come to learn, was that constantly taking grief away from others meant _she _carried it around instead – sometimes for several excruciating days.

Pepper bit the inside of her mouth to keep her from screaming in agony and pain. The amount of sorrow that her son had just been carrying around with him a little while ago was too much for a child. Too much for his little body. Too much for a little boy that had already suffered enough. Even though it hurt her every time she cleansed his aura; even if it physically, mentally and spiritually crippled her for days on end, she would continue to endure taking from her child the sadness he did not deserve to have.

He already knew and understood too much, for his young age. He had already taken on too much. It was up to her to take from him the sorrow she had caused him in the first place. No matter the cost.

xxxXXXxxx

_She fell to her knees once she stood in front of him, all energy and will leaving her in the blink of an eye. Her eyes were barely usable enough for her to pull the lever that dropped the gurney to its lowest setting, allowing her to throw half her body on his while she remained on the floor, clinging to his body for what felt like an eternity. Her fingers clutched at his clothes until her knuckles were white. The left side of her face pressed against his chest, hoping to hear even the slightest hint of a beating heart or feel the rising of his lung cavity. Her tears were so overpowering that she felt she was going to literally drown in them. And no matter how long she waited and waited, how much she begged him to breathe and to hear his heart pump, Tony Stark remained as dead as he had been after she had killed him to save her life._

_ "T-Tony… I… I… I'm s-s-o-so-r-ry…"_

_ She closed her eyes and allowed an almost inhuman bellow to exit her lips. She desperately clawed at him, called his name, and kissed every bit of exposed skin she could find, all of these being the only actions she could do before his body was artificially frozen to slow down its decay._

_ "I love you, Tony," she sobbed and pressed her forehead against his. "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you so much!"_

_ She kissed his lips one last time, apologized once more for ending his life, and then wiped his cold skin clean of her tears._

_ "So much," she repeated. "So… so much…"_

_ She gazed at him longingly, burning the image of his serene face in her brain. Even if it had been somewhere around twenty-four hours since he had passed, she could still smell his natural scent on him. It permeated her nostrils, brought memories of their times together, and harshly reminded her that she would never again feel his skin hot against hers – she would never again be protected and comforted by the power of his touch; by the spirit of his love for her._

_ "I love you," she whispered with finality. "I love you, my Tony Stark."_

_ She slowly stood up from the floor, lifted the gurney to its maximum height as she did so, and then closed her eyes while she pulled her hands away from him. She turned around in place, walked away from him and towards the door, and then nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a loud, painful-sounding gasp behind her. The gasp was followed by many more. Although his eyes did not immediately open, his mouth did. He was struggling to bring air back into his lungs, but his hand still clutched to hers, once she had ran back to him._

**He's alive**_, she did not dare to voice her thoughts as her eyes watched his chest move up and down. _**How… how…****He… he's alive!**

_ "RHODEY!" Pepper screamed over her shoulder, refusing to let go of Tony's shaking hand. "RHOOOOOODEYYYYY!"_

xxxXXXxxx

_"The fate of the few remaining citizens of Latveria was once more a heated worldwide topic, this time discussed during the inaugural events at the opening of the United Nations' temporary headquarters in __Copenhagen__, Denmark__. King T'Challa of Wakanda firmly expressed his belief that the remaining citizens of the country that was responsible for killing millions of people around the world were innocent in the matter, and that the actions of their former ruler did not reflect the beliefs and character of said population altogether. Opponents of this belief were not shy about…"_

Well, at least the world could look forward to some positive things coming out of all of this tragedy. Wakanda was officially entering the global community as a powerful player, utilizing their supply of vibranium and the incredible wealth that came with it to help rebuild and strengthen the world's infrastructure.

There were also strong movements that were gaining legitimate traction to start educating the people about tolerance and even outright friendship for mutants. Considering how many members of the resistance had been revealed to be mutants, risking their lives on behalf of a society that mostly hated and feared them, many people around the world were beginning to rethink their stance on them, and begin seeing them as the real people they were. At least there was _some kind_ of positive outcome from the whole ordeal. If only there had been a more positive outcome closer to home.

Rhodey stared at his watch again and sighed. Pepper was taking way too long to come back from caring for James, and he had an idea of why this was the case. The young boy was everything but disobedient, especially of his mother's direct orders, which meant that there was only one possible reason why the redhead would still be away from the living room: she was avoiding him.

And there was only one reason she would avoid Rhodey: she was in pain.

_Son of a bitch._

Rhodey stood up from the couch and walked straight to the boy's room, just to be sure that Pepper was no longer holding vigil there. As soon as he confirmed that James was once again calm and sound asleep, Rhodey picked up the pace and practically jogged towards the master bedroom of the residence he had called home for months, only to begrudgingly find said room was as empty as he had left it, minutes ago.

Luckily for him, he had by now memorized all of Pepper's hiding spots; even the_ secret_ ones she had commissioned to be added to the house post-purchase, and he headed towards the least obvious one first. The old home had been quickly bought when the ginger had found the location to be the perfect and already-established neighborhood she had wanted for her son to grow up in – as far away from the city as they could get. And when her next-door neighbor had turned out to be none other than Glenda Barnes, Pepper had ordered speedy renovations on the place to make it as close to a safe and comfortable haven as she could have it be so that they could move in sooner than anticipated.

No one had blamed her – or had tried to stop her – when she had announced that she was moving into the suburbs with her child. As someone who had lost every place she had once called home, it was no wonder that Pepper had jumped at the opportunity to start over; far away from the locations that brought painful memories, which only made it all worse for her and her son. Besides, everyone _everywhere _now knew who she was and what she had done. Staying in her home, as much as possible, and in the company of her little boy, was the only reprieve she had wanted, needed, and had been able to find.

Fortunately, this refuge had come with the unexpected yet enthusiastic company of her former _Prohibited Section_ cellmate. There was no doubt that this had helped Pepper and her toddler get into an almost normal routine in ways Rhodey knew he would have never been able to help them achieve. He knew that there was only so much that he could do for the redhead – and so much that she would let him do for her – mostly because she felt guilty at knowing that he was putting his life on hold for her sake.

He had been extremely grateful at finding out that Glenda and Pepper got along very well. She had even gotten the chance to finally meet Glenda's husband; the young man who, like Tony had done for her during the stakeout, as well as twenty-five other young, desperate men whose betrotheds had been abducted, had been forced to commit crimes on behalf of the Maggia, all for the sake of keeping his captive fiancée safe.

It had also helped that Glenda's daughter, little Patricia, despite being nearly two years older than James, had quickly and happily befriended the strange little boy that was too smart and attentive for his age, and James was delighted anytime "Patty" came around to play.

Pepper and Glenda never spoke in detail about what had happened during their time of captivity, but both were well aware of the circumstances under which little Patricia had been conceived. Although Glenda had been cleared for Level 3 for several of the Maggia's long-term members, Pepper suspected that Jules, the Maggia's most supreme asshole – and most dedicated rapist – was the true father of Glenda's daughter. Glenda, for her part, had never bothered to have a paternity test done to confirm this. In the end, she preferred to simply let be what was, and did not want to know the truth – a decision her husband not only respected, but fully embraced, considering the hardships he had dealt with himself, being forced to work alongside the very men who had violated the love of his life. Knowing what she knew now about her own origins, Pepper felt that she understood Glenda's decision better than most people would.

Both women had suffered under the hands of the Maggia. Both had young children filled with too much energy. And even if their initial meeting had been under less-than-pleasant circumstances, it appeared as if the blonde and the redhead were more than willing and able to forget the horrible events that had originally allowed them to befriend each other, and to move forward with a real friendship now.

Except that Pepper, regardless of how much she wanted to forget it all and continue her life as if nothing horrendous had ever happened to her and her family, appeared to be destined to never being able to move on.

xxxXXXxxx

_Tony had spent a week in intensive care, mostly because he was yet to open his eyes. His once-labored breathing had returned to normal. His Extremis was completely stable and available for him to use. All the tests he had undergone while asleep had provided no indication of why he was yet to wake up, other than his body not being ready to do so thus far. It was eerily similar to what had happened to him after the train derailment/plane crash that had occurred during a blizzard years ago, or when Pepper had been in a coma, after being recovered from the submarine. And it was as nerve-racking for everyone as it had been when he and the redhead had been down for the count on those occasions._

_ Yet today, after much waiting and praying, Tony's brainwaves were finally stable. It had taken a lot of digging up and researching, but between Pepper, Dr. Ross, Dr. Betty Ross, Dr. Bruce Banner and Dr. McCoy, they had been able to use tests ran on Pepper's brainwaves when she had been in a coma after the South Pole incident to reconstruct and somewhat predict when Tony would begin showing signs of waking up. Nearly two weeks had passed since taking down Doom, and had it not been for Pepper and for Howard moving mountains and parting oceans to get the resources they needed to help Tony recover, who knows what Tony's status would be now._

_ Not a promising one. Of that, Pepper was sure._

_ A few minutes ago, Dr. Ross had removed the IV line that had been dripping into Tony a muscle relaxant that had kept him asleep while they ran a last set of tests – all that was left to do now was waiting for Tony to finally open his eyes. According to the limited knowledge they had of the Extremis virus, Tony had undergone a similar resetting that both Pepper and James had gone through themselves; one that left them appearing as if they were dead when, in reality, their bodies had just been doing what they did best: evolve to survive. _

_Maya Hansen's modification of the Vortex virus Tony had once created to stop Andros Stark had served as the base for the serum she had given Pepper to use in case Tony was overpowered by Doom. The drawback of its usage, however, was that the serum had been designed to counter Doom's control over Tony's Extremis – and that had not been the true reason for Tony's brutal actions against everyone in the final stages of the fight. Since the serum had not found the target it had been designed to search and destroy, it had taken on the next best bullseye: Tony himself._

_This was why Tony had not woken up after ten seconds of being injected with the serum, just like Maya had informed the redhead that he would when she gave her the inoculation to use. This was why Tony had gone into deep stasis, to reboot his body after being infected by the modified Vortex virus. And since, as opposed to Pepper and James, Tony's Extremis made him more like a computer than a simple human being, the side-effects of Maya's desperate attempt at keeping Tony alive long enough by sedating him while they took down Doom, had yielded unexpected results._

_Unexpected results they hoped would end today._

"_Pepper, are you sure you want to be here for this?"_

"_Yes," Pepper told Rhodey with determination, her son in her arms. "We've waited long enough, Rhodey. As soon as he wakes up, I want him out of here. It's time to bring Tony home with us."_

_Although, being honest with herself, she was not sure where home would be for them from now on. Stark International, Stark Solutions, the Makluan Temple, and even the former Rhodes' home were all gone. The secluded Stark Mansion was still standing, but that was where Howard, Trish, Virgil and Diane were living; a skeleton crew of Stark International employees residing with them while they oversaw the reconstruction of New York City. _

_They could not even live temporarily in the Makluan Temple, which had always been a back-up plan that Tony and Pepper had discussed in the event that they should ever need a place to hide or if their home should be damaged and they wanted to remain close to the center of operations for Team Iron Man. But now, thanks to Doctor Doom, the temple and the armory it had hidden within were gone forever. It had occurred to Pepper that, perhaps, this was the reason why Andros Stark had not sought out the armory when he had arrived from the future to kill Tony – he had not known about the Makluan Temple because in the time from which he came, it had no longer existed._

_Still, Rhodey's former home had been the easiest one for Pepper to focus rebuilding efforts on. A week ago, she had authorized the reconstruction of the house to take place. It would take the crew up to a month to complete, despite how much money and resources she was sending their way. But the wait would be worth it, she knew, if she could make sure her son and her husband had a nice place to recover from the aftermath of being part of Doom's war._

_At this point, this was all she truly looked forward to doing: taking her boys home with her, showering them with love and affection, tending to them, and working together as a family, in order to move on with their lives, making them as normal as they could afford them to be._

_Everything and everyone else could wait._

_Her genius boy and her innocent child could not._

_She readjusted James's position in her arms so that she could hold on to the comforting hand Rhodey had just offered her when it became evident that Tony was stirring awake. The genius' fingers twitched somewhat. His eyelids wrinkled. He took in a deep breath. And before she could call herself ready to face the music, Tony Stark finally abandoned the land of the nearly-dead and returned to the land of the fully-living._

_He opened his eyes slowly, kept his gaze on the ceiling, and then uttered a single word._

"_Ugh."_

_The inventor sat up in the bed, pressed his hand against his chest, then on his forehead, and when he finally looked up and towards the people standing to his right, his brow crinkled even more._

"_What happened? Where am I?"_

_A collective sigh of relief filled the room and, surprisingly enough, Tony did not flinch away when Dr. Ross walked over to him, began shining a light in his eyes, and started questioning the young billionaire._

"_You were in a... an accident. Do you know who you are?"_

"_Yes. I'm… my name is: Tony. Tony Stark."_

"_Good. Good. Do you know who that is?" Dr. Ross pointed towards Howard, who was now standing to the doctor's right, and Tony snickered._

"_Yeah, that's my dad: Howard Stark."_

_A small, nervous laughter escaped everyone in the room._

"_Are you in pain, Tony? Does it hurt anywhere?"_

"_My head," he replied and rubbed his temples. "I feel kinda out of it, you know? Just… it feels like it's foggy or something."_

"_That's just the sedatives wearing off," Dr. Ross assured him. "Don't move too quickly, or it'll make you dizzy."_

"_OK, Dr. Ross."_

_The doctor smiled widely. His eyes then landed on Pepper and Rhodey, both of whom were yet to be seen by the slowly-recovering genius. Dr. Ross allowed Tony a moment for him to blink and lightly shake his head to regain some of his balance and faculties, and once Tony looked up again and to his left, he grinned._

"_Rhodey! You're here, too? It must have been one hell of an accident for you to show up!"_

"_You can say that," Rhodey said, unaware of how much Tony remembered of his near-death experience. He did not want to overwhelm him with the details just yet._

"_Oh, hey, there," Tony locked eyes with the ginger and then on her and Rhodey's laced hands. "You're new. Are you Rhodey's girlfriend?"_

_Just like that, the entire room became dead silent and as cold as ice._

xxxXXXxxx

His fingers traced an image of the smiling redhead, sitting next to him on what appeared to be a balcony floor, the sunset behind them both. He had seen this picture several times, as he had also seen many others of them together, but it was as if he was seeing someone else's life. The happiness that flowed from their faces, the ring on his left finger that he had finally decided to wear again, the digital children's storybooks that he had learned from his schematic logs he had written and designed himself… the little boy with the electric blue eyes. All were evidence of a nearly-perfect life he had no recollection of. A life he had wanted nothing to do with at first – a life he had not known he had lost; and that he had not known he would ever so desperately want returned to him.

xxxXXXxxx

_"Girlfriend?" Pepper asked, her eyes wide, her mind in utter disbelief. "I… I'm not Rhodey's girlfriend, Tony."_

_ "You're not?" Tony narrowed his eyes, stared at their joined hands for a second time, and then realized there was a child being held in the ginger's other arm. "Hi there, Little Guy. He's a cute kid. Is he your little brother?" _

_ "No… uh… I… how… but he…" the redhead stammered._

_ "Oh, I see. He's __**yours**__. Sorry," he looked to his best friend again. "So are you going to introduce me to your new friend, Rhodey? Wait, your hair looks different than it did earlier, and… are you __**taller**__?"_

_ This caused Rhodey to frown in confusion and dawning worry, and before Pepper found her full voice and before enough mind-to-mouth coordination came to her to ask the same questions that were already in everyone's mind, Dr. Ross rushed towards the inventor, shone a light in his eyes again, and then spoke once more._

_ "Tony, you don't know who she is?"_

_ "No," Tony shook his head. "Should I?"_

_ "Tony," Dr. Ross' voice became stern. "Are you sure you don't remember who she is? But you remember me?"_

_ "Am I supposed to know you, too?" Tony said, prompting everyone to be taken aback._

_ "You said my name before I even introduced myself," Dr. Ross offered with a confused look himself._

_ "Yeah," Tony pointed towards the doctor's chest. "I read it off your nametag."_

xxxXXXxxx

He had begun by having only one scrapbook in his hand. Yet, soon enough, he had surrounded himself with anything he thought could bring the memories back. He had walked around his home, opened all possible storage places, and had pulled out everything that belonged to them – to her. To the redheaded woman that had lived with him for a month before she had left. To the small child that had called him "Daddy," until the night before he and his mother had moved out.

"Pepper," her name had begun to naturally roll off his tongue, weeks ago. "Pepper… Pepper Potts. Pepper Potts-Stark."

_Stark_, he paused for an instant when their wedding album stood out from the rest.

_Stark, Pepper Potts-Stark. I gave her my name. I made her my wife._

Why, oh, why could he not recall any of that?

He had seen all the pictures, watched the videos, and read the logs… that is, those that had survived the world-wide disaster that he also did not remember. He had spoken to her, had tried to get to know her… he had even lied to her about his memories returning! It had almost worked. But in the end, he had only hurt her more. He had seen it in her eyes that she was searching for someone who was not there anymore. She had been waiting for a man that he no longer was; a man that, apparently, he did not want to be again.

_If I loved her… if I loved her so much… why can't I remember her? Why can't I be who I was then?_

Why could he not open his heart to her? Why did his mind and heart both refuse to make it easy for her to be with him?

Sadly, he knew why. The doctors had told him why. His psychic/telepath friends had told him why. Rhodey had told him why.

And even more sadly, they had told her too.

"Tony?" Whitney's sudden voice startled him. "What the hell is going on in here?"

xxxXXXxxx

_Tony's logical response to the doctor's name inquiry caught everyone by surprise, and it caused the room to become silent once more. The inventor's eyes traveled from the doctor to his father, then to Rhodey, and finally to the redhead and the boy. He then stared at his lap, trying to put together what he was now starting to realize he had missed. Unfortunately, nothing stood out to him._

_ "Tony," Howard's calm voice was exactly what the confused genius needed right now, "What is the last thing you remember?"_

_ "Uhm," Tony rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. "The temple. That… that old temple where you found that weird ring inside. And the __**Earth Movers**__. I… The demonstration. Did something go wrong with the __**Earth Movers **__demo? Is that why I'm in a hospital?"_

_ Howard swallowed hard, gave Rhodey a knowing look the man instantly returned, and then asked the only question the old inventor needed answered to confirm that his dreaded suspicions were correct._

_ "Anthony: how old are you?"_

_ "How long have I been here?"_

_ "Two weeks."_

_ "Two weeks?!" Tony's eyes widened. "Wow! Well, I guess that makes me fifteen."_

xxxXXXxxx

"Nothing," Tony immediately replied, began cleaning up the mess of pictures and mementos he had made on the floor, and even briefly regretted giving his old friend a key to his home.

"What do you mean: nothing? Tony, you're looking at your records again!"

"They're not _just_ records, alright?" Tony felt his anger rise. "These… my life… they're all I have, OK?"

"Tony," Whitney tiredly dropped her purse on the coffee table in the living room of the Rhodes' former and now rebuilt home. "We talked about this. You said you were going to let it go. You know it's best for everyone."

"I _know_ what I _said_, Whitney," Tony avoided her gaze. "There's nothing wrong with reminding myself _why_ I decided to ignore the fact that I forced myself to forget a good chunk of my life."

Whitney scoffed, shook her head, and sat on the couch.

"Is that really what this is, Tony? A reminder that you did the right thing? I've known you for years. You aren't going to fool me."

"You're starting to sound a lot like Rhodey," the young man's tone was spiteful. "Next thing I know, you are gonna turn your back on me, too. Just like that backstabbing son of a bitch did."

"He just did what he thought was the right thing to do, Tony. I, for one, agree with what he did. What would you have done in his place?"

Tony opened his mouth to retort, but he quickly snapped it shut again. He truly had no good answer to provide; he knew that the blonde was correct. Rhodey had chosen to put distance between himself and his childhood friend, for the sake of helping the family the inventor had once had, and that he had left to fend for itself.

Tony hated to admit it, but Rhodey had proven to be _twice_ the man he was.

Then again, what had everyone expected him to do at finding out he had forgotten six years of his life? How could anyone be expected to suddenly and calmly accept that, not only had your teenage years passed you by, but that you were responsible for a woman, and had fathered a child?

Why did everyone fail to see how that sounded to someone who was still, from his perspective, a fifteen-soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old?

How had anyone expected him not to freak out?

Truth was that, they had.

xxxXXXxxx

_When the ginger's hand covered her mouth to barely choke back a sob, Tony's back stiffened, and his breathing became partially labored again._

_ "What-what's going on? Am I… am I wrong?"_

_ "Tony," Rhodey walked towards his friend, "There's something you need to know."_

_ "What?" his electric blue eyes stared back and forth between Rhodey and Howard. "What's wrong with me? Am I sick?"_

_ "You, uhm… I…" Rhodey looked to Howard, unsure of how to proceed._

_ "Son," Howard chirped in, "You… you seem to have forgotten a few things."_

_ "Forgotten? Like, amnesia, you mean?"_

_ "Yes," Howard began. "You… you're not fifteen, anymore."_

_ "What? I-I'm not? But, I… I…" _

_Tony stared at himself, noticed that his legs did in fact look longer, and that his arms were much more muscular than they had been the last time he had seen them. Even his hands appeared to be more rugged, and when he used them to feel his stubbly face, Tony closed his eyes and began hyperventilating._

_ "Son?"_

_Tony's only response was to shake his fists in anger. _

"_Tony, man, calm down," Rhodey tried to place a hand on his shoulder, but Tony slapped it away._

"_How old?" Tony asked._

_ "Well, Son, you…"_

_ "Dad!" Tony stood up from the bed and glared at his father. "How. Old?"_

_ "Twenty-two," Pepper said, her voice finally returning to her. "You're twenty-two, Tony."_

xxxXXXxxx

Tony dumped his body on the couch, next to Whitney's sitting form, and he sighed loudly and dejectedly. He already knew how this argument was going to go: it always went the same way – it had followed the same pattern for three months. He would tell Whitney that he wanted to try to remember again. Whitney would ask him if he was sure. He would say that he was. She would then make some phone calls to S.H.I.E.L.D. and other people to arrange yet another session of attempting to restore the genius' lost memories. He would be thoroughly tested on, injected with a myriad of possible curing serums and, in the end, nothing ever returned to him. It never did. It never, ever did. The new failure would only further break his spirits and hope, and the redhead's heart.

He no longer wanted to upset the ginger – Pepper. He wanted to stop hurting her and the little boy – his son. That was why he had stopped pursuing them, months ago, shortly after they had moved out of this house – that and the fact that Rhodey had gotten in his way the last time he had tried speaking to Pepper, threatening to physically impair him, if he did not listen to the redhead's wishes and tried to again contact the family he had abandoned.

At this point, and after all possible attempts at restoring his memory had failed by doctors, Jean Grey and even Professor Charles Xavier, Tony was convinced that his memories would never come back. He was not completely human. He was a computer-human hybrid – one that had been able to physically delete the backup copy of his entire life from the last two months of his fifteenth year and onward. As he had understood it from the doctors that had treated him, during his last seconds of his old self, he had made himself forget what he had once loved. He had done so, with frightening accuracy and precision, to ensure that he was never again the cause of Pepper's near-demise.

He had made himself forget about her, so that she had the chance to live a long and happy life.

Without him.

"Why are you here, Whitney?" Tony's eyes landed on the news report once more when he realized he did not have the energy to dance to the _I want to remember_ tune.

"Because I live here," she reminded him in an attempt to lighten up the mood. When his head shifted from the television to sternly staring at her face, a lack of amusement shining from his eyes, the blonde knew that Tony was not in the disposition to jest.

"Because you need me. Just like Pepper needs Rhodey to get through this, you need me."

Tony rubbed his face with his hands, hunched his back, and rested his weight on his knees.

"Who I need, is her."

Whitney narrowed her eyes at hearing his words. Her eyes then landed on her purse, where her mask was kept, and which she would soon have to use against Tony, once more.

For the final round, she hoped, this time.

xxxXXXxxx

_"No," Tony shook his head. "This is a joke. A sick joke!"_

_ "No, it's not," Pepper replied, put her son in one of the chairs in the room, and began slowly walking towards her husband, reading his spiking aura as she did so. "It's true, Tony. You're twenty-two. Things have changed. Time has gone by. And you've grown. You've grown to become a hero, and a great man."_

_ Tony's head snapped towards Pepper and, for a moment, their eyes locked in silence. Everyone held their breath as Pepper closed the distance between them, surreptitiously manipulated and absorbed his feelings of confusion and anger, and managed to partly calm him down for an instant._

_ "Who," he gulped, "Who are you?"_

_ She gently grabbed his left hand with her own, rubbed with her finger the ring he had not realized he was wearing, and his eyes widened when he saw the matching set on her left hand._

_ "I… I'm your wife, Tony. I'm Pepper Potts-Stark."_

xxxXXXxxx

He felt the blonde's left hand rest on his knee immediately before her right hand pulled his face towards hers. She gave him a small smile, kissed his forehead briefly and tenderly, and then pulled back.

"It's over with her, Tony. You know that she doesn't want to see you anymore."

"But… But Howie," hearing Tony use the nickname he had given his son made the blonde raise a single eyebrow.

"But what, Tony? What about Howie?"

"My son. He… he can't… he _shouldn't _grow up without a father. His _real _father. I… Maybe Pepper doesn't want to see me anymore. Maybe she's moved on and doesn't… need me anymore. Maybe she and Rhodey are happy together. But I have a right to see my son. He… he's my son, too. And if I want to see him… if I want to spend time with him…"

"But you_ did_ spend time with him, with both of them. And what happened, Tony? What happened when you three tried living together?"

"I…" Tony groaned. "I screwed it up."

xxxXXXxxx

_His blue eyes watched her up and down before they then focused on the little boy, sitting in the back. Tony swallowed hard, realized the toddler had his eyes, put two and two together, shook his head from side to side in denial, and then took a step back and away from Pepper._

_ "No," he momentarily closed his eyes. "That… is that… I… did we…?"_

_ Pepper nodded to him, pressed her hand against his chest when anger yet again overpowered him, but this time, her efforts were for naught._

_ "NO!" he practically jumped away from her. "DON'T TOUCH ME! STAY AWAY FROM ME!"_

_ "Tony," Pepper kept her distance, but did not relent in her efforts to make things better and clearer for him. "Tony, listen to me. It's alright. It's going to be alright. Just… just breathe, OK? Just breathe."_

_ "No! It's NOT going to be alright! I need to get out of here! This is a dream! No – a nightmare! This is not real!"_

_ "Son, calm down now."_

_ "You!" Tony pointed towards his father. "Who are you, and what have you done with my father? And you," he then pointed at Rhodey, "Where is my friend?"_

_ "T, sit down," Rhodey began walking towards Tony, but the inventor pushed him back._

_ "GET AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE! LET ME OUT!"_

_ In a matter of seconds, everything spiraled out of control. The more his family tried to comfort him, the angrier Tony became. He did not understand why he was being lied to – or why he was unable to wake up from this dream. But, most importantly, he wanted everyone to stop telling him what to do and let him run out the door and away from here._

_ "This is not working," Pepper said, suddenly realizing how close Tony was to having a nervous breakdown. "We need to sedate him, now. He-he's about to–"_

_ The redhead's words were interrupted by the loud sound of all of the electronic devices near them exploding in the blink of an eye. Tony's wild eyes looked around himself, realized he was starting to somehow interact with the computers around him, and he then groaned at how much the task hurt his brain._

_ "WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? AAAAAHHH!"_

_ He fell to his knees, clenched his eyes shut, and desperately dug his fingernails against the sides of his face, easily drawing blood from his skin._

_ "Sedate him!" Pepper screamed while she stood in front of her son, attempting to shield the boy from seeing his father act so aggressively and rampantly. "Dr. Ross, please SEDATE HIM!"_

_ The good doctor took out a syringe from his pocket, but when he tried to inject Tony with it, the inventor stood up from the floor and took a step back._

_ "NO! NO! STOP! YOU'RE DRUGGING ME! AAAGGGGHHH! MY HEAD! MAKE IT STOP!"_

_ "Hold him down!" Rhodey said as he and the others tried to keep him from hurting himself. The more they tried to restrain him, the stronger Tony became. He was not yet aware of the raw power he held inside thanks to Extremis, so what should have been just a light push and shove, turned into a storm of harmful kicks, smacks and punches._

_ And one of them, the final and strongest one he managed to release before he was sedated, backslapped Pepper to the ground. _

xxxXXXxxx

"Pepper?" Rhodey knocked on the door. "Pepper, open up."

_"In a minute,"_ came the muffled response from inside the bathroom.

"Pepper, I know what you're doing there. Please open up."

To his surprise, the door to the guest bathroom immediately opened up, revealing a redhead that was failing miserably at pretending she had not been crying her eyes out. When Rhodey tilted his head at her, silently asking her what had gotten her so upset now, she simply shrugged, walked out of the bathroom, went around her friend, and then headed to the living room once more, Rhodey following behind.

The news was still playing in the background. The scenes of the aftermath in the world were being presented with a sad-sounding song in the back, as if the entire situation was not morbid and saddening enough on its own.

When the song ended, and the last scene showed the names of her dead friends, the redhead angrily turned off the television, stood up, headed to the master bedroom, and climbed into bed.

xxxXXXxxx

_ Two weeks._

_ Two full weeks had gone by since Tony had woken up._

_ The clock kept ticking. The options and attempts that had not been halted by Tony were running out. Yet, she was no closer to having her husband back._

_ And now, at the end of the day today, the three of them: she, Tony and James, would leave the medical facility they were in, and they would move into the finally rebuilt former Rhodes' home. It had been the place she had initially been dying to call home again, but that now, given the circumstances, she could only call: a house to live in._

_ It had taken Rhodey, Howard and Roberta constantly talking to Tony for the genius to finally accept moving in with Pepper and the little boy, once the home was reconstructed. He had so far refused to be treated for what everyone told him was wrong with him – he did not believe being forced to remember his life was fair to him, at all. He had adamantly declined to accept that so much of his life had passed him by. And he was even more adamantly opposed to just jumping back into what everyone told him was normal for him: tending to his son and his wife._

_ He did not even wear his wedding ring anymore. He had handed it to her, three days after he had woken up, but not without making sure she understood that, as far as he was concerned, the man she knew was nowhere to be found._

_**"This is who I am now,"**__ he had told her a few days ago, when he had told her he would move in with her, despite his reservations. __**"And I get it that we were something before, you and me. But I have no interest in getting that back. I mean, you're nice. And you're pretty. But I don't see myself feeling anything for you, at all. Friendship, perhaps. But definitely not love."**_

**Definitely not love**_, she thought yet again, wondering if this was in fact the best decision for her and her son._

_ There was so much more at stake now than there had been just a few weeks ago; more than she had wanted it to be and to accept. There was a small possibility that everyone was wrong about Tony's diagnosis; that they could be mistaken in their conclusion that Tony had done this to himself. The possibility was very slight – but it was still there. There was still a chance that Tony had not wanted, so badly, to forget about her and their son, to permanently butcher his memories of them._

_ Oh, the irony of it all! That the redhead got to feel, first-hand, the torture and pain her genius boy had once felt due to her amnesia, years ago. And, even worse than ironic, was the fact that the only person who could have helped Tony recall what he had lost, had died trying to defend them both._

xxxXXXxxx

Tony stood up from the couch, walked towards the kitchen counter, and stared at the scrapbooks again. There were plenty of them – some of him alone, mostly showing him working on inventions of his, including newspaper clips and printed online articles of his success as an entrepreneur and as a hero. One was of Pepper alone – this particular one filled with mostly reconstructed pictures of her childhood, birth and adoption records, and memorable moments to her in high school and in college. There were a couple of their son, in which he had found a picture of himself, reclining back in a chair, his baby son on his chest, both of them appearing to be asleep. There was one of him and Pepper only – the particular scrapbook he had been looking through the most often as a means to force himself to remember what they had once been together. There were two of the entire family – and one of Pepper's pregnancy journey.

That last one had made his guilt quadruple and his remorse increase tenfold. Seeing in that scrapbook the clear indication of how involved he had been in the redhead's pregnancy – how serious he had taken the role of the caregiver to the pregnant woman, had been a sure way for him to feel like the lowest scum of the Earth whenever he remembered the harsh words he had once said to her: when he had told her, shortly before they had left the hospital he had woken up in, that he did not see himself falling in love with her – that the man she had once loved was gone.

So many joyful moments together. So much evidence of a life he had happily lived and had sadly left behind. So much material he could use to recall his memories. But nothing ever helped him bring them back.

xxxXXXxxx

_Two weeks into living with the redhead and the toddler, Tony found himself even more confused than before. He had been certain – almost with no margin of error – that he would soon become tired of sharing a place with two total strangers who had the ulterior motive of forcing him to remember what he had wanted to forget. He had anticipated all types of issues due to their nearby presence, all kinds of arguments with the other adult in the home, and all forms of misery for all of them. But he was yet to experience any of that._

_At all._

_In fact, and for the most part, little James and Pepper Potts, had left him alone thus far. Surprisingly, he was beginning to feel left out._

"_Patricia?" Tony called out to the woman from the back door of the house. She and the child had been spending time outside today, given how beautiful the day was, but he had sad news to bring their playtime to an end._

"_Patricia!" the inventor walked closer to where she and James sat on the grass. "Hey! Sorry to bother you, but you're gonna have to come inside."_

_The redhead furrowed her brow, opened her mouth to speak, but James beat her to the punch._

"_Daddy play?"_

"_Uhm, uh… I…"_

"_Daddy wanna play?" James repeated, his arm extended towards him, a ball in his hand. "Daddy play ball?"_

"_Jimmy," Pepper grabbed the ball from the child. "I've told you not to bother people like that. If they wanted to play with you, they'd just play. Remember?"_

"_But, Mama…"_

"_No," Pepper stood up from the ground, placed her hands on her hips, and then sternly eyed her son. "I won't remind you again, Jimmy. We just don't bother Da—Tony, like that."_

_The genius caught her slip-up, scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, cleared his throat, and then remembered what he had come here to relay to them._

"_Anyway, I just got a weather alert that a storm is coming. It seems it's gonna be a bad one. I… I just didn't want you two to get caught in it. You… you could get sick."_

"_Oh!" Pepper looked towards the sky, and was quick to see that there were in fact some dark-looking clouds heading their way. "Oh, well. Thanks, Tony. Yeah-uhm. Thanks."_

"_Sure," he said, but had nothing else to add._

_The redhead opted to end the discomfort she could see pouring out of him by picking up her son, turning around in place, and heading back inside the house. Tony then stared back and forth between the back door and the ball that had been abandoned on the grass. After a minute or so of deliberation, he picked up the toy, ran back into the house with it in his hand, and looked for the redhead once more._

"_Patricia?" he found her in the kitchen, searching for items to prepare dinner for all three of them, just as she had been doing every time since move-in day. It was definitely one of the best perks of having a responsible adult in the house – one that knew how to cook and did so at least three times a day: he never starved. Sure, had he been living alone, he could have easily ordered a pizza or paid someone to cook for him, but he did not feel that he had the need to do so. The ginger's skills in the kitchen were remarkable, most especially when she felt like making pancakes from scratch. And, as he had been beginning to realize, she knew his eating habits like the back of her hand._

"_Yeah?" she did not even bother to face him. She could already tell by his anxiety-filled aura that, whatever he was about to say to her, she was not going to like. Lately, he had been acting even more strangely than usual around her. Almost as if he was constantly choosing between a fight or flight response, and she was starting to suspect that he was simply preparing to tell her that he had had enough of this farce. That he had determined that this unusual living arrangement was not working for him, and that she and the little boy had to move out._

"_I, well…" he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. " I want to talk to you."_

_Pepper felt her stomach sink to her feet, but she kept her focus on her task. _

"_About what?"_

"_About… about us."_

_She hesitated for a second, felt grateful that her back was still to him, bit her thumbnail, and then cleared her throat._

"_What about us?"_

"_Well, it's more about me. But it kinda involves you, too. So-so I guess it is, technically about us. Somewhat. Maybe. I… I'm not quite sure yet."_

"_OK," her tone was neutral, and she made sure that her posture persisted in being one that showed that she was relaxed – even if she was not. She only did so because she had learned, a long time ago, that letting Tony ramble on helped him to be honest with himself and with everyone around him while trying to make a point. As smart as he was, and as large as his vocabulary was, when it came down to speaking the truth to people, he was the worst stuttering genius in the world._

"_I- I've been thinking that, well. That I… that maybe. Maybe I do want to give it try."_

"_Give what a try?" she took out a pot and a pan._

"_Remembering," he spat out before he lost his nerve. "Remembering you, our son… us… My old life. I want to give remembering all of it, a try."_

_Pepper left the pot and pan sit to on the counter, slowly turned around to face Tony, and then exhaled slowly and nervously. From all the things she had expected him to say to her right now, this had not even made the list._

"_W-Why? I mean," she chuckled. "You-you said… you said that you didn't want to… and that–"_

"_I-I know," he was struggling to convert his thoughts into words, even more than before. He was shaking in anticipation, afraid of her likely response, unsure of his own actions, but he still found enough courage in him to walk towards where she stood to look her in the eye. _

"_But, I didn't know you then. I was confused. I was angry. I felt lost. Cheated. And you… I… I've gotten to know you better now. And you… you're a wonderful person. You… you're so smart, and caring, and… And James… he's… he's so… so…"_

"_Fond of you?" she offered in a whisper and he nodded. He had not wanted to accept it right away, but that kid was definitively his: he was smarter than his age should have naturally allowed him to be. He was still a child, in the sense that he was still naïve, innocent, and playful. But sometimes, Tony would see it in him that he was taking in his surroundings, picking up silent clues, processing them with caution and high interest, and he would then sometimes put together words and sentences that had surprised even the genius himself._

_On more than one occasion, the little boy had sat quietly on Tony's work table, following the scientist's every move while he had tinkered with gadgets, old or new. And, in one particular instance, the little guy had helped him determine the root cause of a major malfunction his latest invention had been plagued with._

_All without uttering a word._

_That child and this woman were like no one he had ever met before. They were both special. Unique. They were not what would be considered normal people – just like him. _

"_I just think that, that-that the least I could do for you at this point is try. I… I want to give it a shot. I think… I think it's worth trying it out, at least once."_

"_But, Tony…"_

"_Please," he held her hands in his before he even knew what he was doing. "Just this once. I… I know I don't need your help for this. I know I can call up S.H.I.E.L.D. or whatever, and have it done without you even knowing about it. But I think you should know. I think you should be there. Just in case, you know? You __**deserve **__to be there."_

_Pepper gulped, realized that their son was watching them attentively from the door to his room, his aura beaming in hope and happiness, his smile wider than she had seen on him for a while, so she reluctantly nodded to the man before her._

"_Alright," she pulled her hands away from his. "If you really want to do it. If this is really what __**you **__want to do, then go for it. And I'll be there, if you really want me to be."_

"_Thank you, Patricia," Tony said with a smile. "This…" he chuckled and shrugged. "It's hard for you, I know that. But I'm just as scared as you are. Maybe even more."_

"_Well," the redhead shrugged, "It… it can't be any worse for you than it is right now, right?"_

"_Yeah," Tony nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."_

_But they had both turned out to be wrong._

_It later turned out that it __**could**__ get worse than he had had it at that point; as all the physical and mental pain he endured to go through probable treatments, was all for nothing. Seeing her disappointed face when he had confessed to her that the treatment had not worked, to his surprise, broke not only her heart, but his as well._

xxxXXXxxx

Rhodey sat on the bed, his back flush against the headboard. In his hands, he held a S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued electronic tablet he was using to fill out debriefing forms and questionnaires that were mandatory to be completed shortly after missions had come to an end. Typically, S.H.I.E.L.D. preferred that its agents performed these evaluations in person and before they left the base. Yet, in Rhodey's situation, the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Maria Hill, understood that the War Machine alter ego had other responsibilities on his plate that prevented him from being away from home for too long.

Pepper laid on the same bed, on her right side, giving her back to him, pretending to be asleep. She knew that, as long as Rhodey suspected she was still awake, he would not go back to his room to rest for the night. It was always the same routine, every night since he had moved in with her and little James – or at least during the nights he was not out on duty until the next day. At first, Pepper had scoffed at the idea of having a _sleep bodyguard_. But once she began to realize that she was in fact harming her child with her midnight thrashing and screams, it became evident to her that she _did_ need Rhodey around to keep her depression in check.

This was one of the main reasons why Rhodey had moved in with them: to keep an eye on them; to watch over Pepper, given her condition; and to keep Tony Stark at bay. The genius had been led to believe, even did so today, that Rhodey was more than just Pepper's friend, even when the actual arrangement could not be further from the truth. It had all come to that, unexpectedly so and without any need to plan for it, when Tony had showed up at their doorstep a few months ago.

The memory was still fresh in Pepper's mind. A month had gone by since Pepper and her son had moved out from the old Rhodes' home, shortly after realizing, with dismayed finality, that the man she had married had truly left this world. After visiting a few times, Rhodey had spoken to Pepper about his observations on her behavior and the effect it had on her son. Reluctantly, Pepper agreed to have Rhodey move in while she and his nephew settled. The day Rhodey had moved in, Tony had showed up as well.

It had been everything but comfortable, that impromptu meeting Tony had orchestrated. He had tried talking directly to her, but Rhodey had stood in his way; essentially preventing the distance between the ginger and the blue-eyed genius to not be any less than ten feet. He had asked – yelled to her from his position outside her new home – to consider moving back in with him, for both of their sakes. He had told her that it was strange not having them around, and that he could really use their company – even the child's. He had admitted that he was lonely and confused, and that she and little James were good roommates he had begun to miss.

Needless to say, while his intentions had been partially honorable, his choice of words had been a stab to the redhead's heart.

Before Tony had known what had hit him, Rhodey had knocked him on the ground with a strong fist to the face. The angry words had turned into a screaming match, then to a scuffle; and, finally, to the ultimate fight between the two childhood friends. Rhodey had been tired of seeing Pepper suffer; of watching Tony act as selfish and clueless as he had been before the plane crash that had changed his life. The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. had had it up to here with watching his two friends make the other miserable – consciously or unconsciously so – and took matters into his own hands.

_"Pepper can't come back home with you, Tony,"_ Rhodey had told his friend once he had been able to subdue him. _"She and Jimmy are NOT coming back with you."_

_"Why the hell not?"_

_"Because Pepper's with me now,"_ Rhodey had lied_. "Because you lost your chance. We're together now."_

Tony's eyes had immediately searched for Pepper, who had been standing by the front door the entire time, forcing herself to stay out of the fight until now. The genius' angry face told it all to her: he was silently demanding that she confirmed what he had just heard.

_"Go home, Tony," _she had told him._ "Go home and don't__** ever**__ come back. Don't ever come back looking for us. You're dead to me now."_

Not wanting to breakdown crying again, Pepper jumped from the bed, ran out of the bedroom and towards the laundry room, and left Rhodey sighing loudly before he chased after her yet again.

xxxXXXxxx

_Her fingers traced the names on the monument before her, tears running down her face as she did so. This was the first time she was here to honor and remember them in this fashion – although she mourned them almost every day. Unfortunately, knowing that things were about to change yet again for her, this was probably the first and last time she would be here in a very long time._

_ In total, there were millions of names written on monuments, and there were thousands of memorials around the world. Each city and/or country had erected their own, to their own specifications and cultural customs, to list the names of their fallen citizens. Yet, every single memorial in existence, regardless of where it was located or what language it was written in, shared the same four names atop the tall structures: Nick Fury: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Dr. Maya Hansen: Scientist. Genetics Pioneer (her honorary doctorate degree had been granted by MIT, posthumous); Edwin Jarvis: Soldier. Warrior. Friend; and, Gene Khan: The One True Mandarin._

_ Pepper closed her eyes, rested her palm against the cold stone covered in tempered glass, and then spoke._

"_Tony's name should be here."_

_Rhodey, who was standing behind her, guarding her visit to the memorial, was taken aback._

"_What? Why, Pepper? How can you even say that! He's still alive!"_

"_No, he's not," she swallowed down some of her tears. "For my son. For me. His father's gone. My husband. __**My Tony**__. He died in Latveria that day. I killed him. I killed my son's father."_

"_Pepper…" Rhodey began in an attempt to comfort the redhead, but he instead looked at his feet when he realized that he had nothing to say to that._

"_You know," Pepper continued after a sniffle, "When S.H.I.E.L.D. took Tony for killing Rhona, it was just me and James for a while. And during that time, I promised myself that I'd do anything for my son to know who his father was. I was determined to make sure all the shit Tony and I went through up to then was not for nothing. I told myself that I had a say in all of this, and that my baby was not going to grow up without a father. And, in the end, after everything was said and done, I still failed."_

"_Pepper," Rhodey placed a hand on her shoulder. "You… you haven't failed. Not yet. There's still time. There's still a chance we'll figure out how to get Tony his memories back. There just has to be a way!"_

"_THERE ISN'T ONE, RHODEY!" Pepper turned in place and sobbed. "That's the thing: there's no way! He doesn't WANT to remember! He doesn't want anything to do with me! With our son! With us! And if he… if he knew… if he found out that…"_

_ Pepper shook her head, hugged herself, and then looked away._

_ "I can't wait any longer, Rhodey. He's not coming back. He's never coming back. I… we need to move out. Move on with our lives."_

_ "But, Pepper, where are you going to go?"_

_ Pepper snickered bitterly, wiped her tears from her face, and then scoffed. _

"_I'm still fucking rich. I'll just buy another house."_

xxxXXXxxx

Whitney silently observed as Tony rested his weight against the kitchen counter, his eyes appearing to be fixed on the scrapbooks and picture albums, but she knew his mind was everywhere but in this room with her. She had learned to practically read his thoughts by the way his face contorted – and sometimes by the way he sighed. She could tell he was in pain. She could tell he was miserable. But there was nothing she could do for him. Not anymore. She wanted to help him – but it was all up to him now.

Just as she had once told Fury, it appeared more and more that the blonde was going to win the joke in the end. Yet, knowing what she knew now, and having now lived her life in a completely different manner than she had done so before the mask had overtaken her, Whitney Stane knew she owed Tony and Pepper a lot more than just what she had offered thus far.

Taking the alternative route was always easier than following the path of truth. Tony would never know the difference, anyway, she knew. But she could not bring herself to do just that; to take the easy road, even if opting to doing the right thing was always the most difficult and tiring track to pursue. Tonight was his last chance – _her_ last chance – to finally complete her mission; a mission that Maya Hansen had designed for the blonde, months ago.

Tonight, finally tonight, Whitney Stane would take a shot at Tony Stark. And, with a little bit of luck, she would not fail again.

xxxXXXxxx

_ He had acted irrationally, he was aware of that, but he had done so with good intentions in his heart. Nevertheless, it had been one of those occasions where the thought did not really count. In his defense, he had been desperate and had felt there was nothing else he could have done to make things right. When he had accidentally heard the redhead say she was going to move out, he had felt something in his heart that he had not been able to explain. He had not intended to find her and Rhodey there, and he had not meant to hide from view when he had realized they were on opposite sides of the New York City Doom War Memorial. He had gone there to try to trigger his memories – she had gone there to say goodbye to her memory of him._

_He had really thought that pretending to remember something would give her hope – at least temporarily – while he winged it and tried to figure out what to do next. He had not known that she could read people's feelings with her eyes – quite literally. He had not been aware that the virus she also carried – the one similar to his – gave her the ability to catch him in a lie._

_Or perhaps, he had just not wanted it to be true._

_His fib had lasted all of thirty seconds. That was how long it had taken not only her, but the little boy as well, to see through his charade. That was how he had realized that the boy – their son – had in fact inherited some of their unusual abilities. Up to then, he had rarely spent quality time with either of them, save for when it was time to eat, or when the little boy had silently joined him in his lab. When he had, and not counting a handful of occasions that he had come to see as normal, they had not appeared to have supernatural powers to him. _

_All the same, he had considered the three of them to be somewhat of a strange family. Yet, he sometimes could appreciate how it would have, at some point in the past, made sense to them._

"_Why you cry, Mama?"_

_Tony heard the little boy ask his mother and Tony's heart sank. He had come to the kiddo's room, looking for Pepper to try to patch things up. Before he had reached the door, before he had been seen, he had chickened out, opting to remain standing outside the room, by the open door, his back against the wall._

"_I cry because I'm sad, baby."_

"_You sad?"_

"_Yes."_

"_I sad, too."_

"_Why are you sad, Jimmy?"_

"_I sad… for Daddy."_

_Tony heard the sound of movement, perhaps of the woman readjusting her position on the tiny bed to better soothe her crying son. Silence befell them all for a minute, until James spoke again._

"_Daddy gone. Right, Mama?"_

"_Yes," the breaking of her voice was painful to hear. "Daddy's gone."_

"_He come back?"_

"_No. He's never coming back."_

"_You and me, Mama," the boy recalled the phrase he had used before while in the middle of a war. "You and me, Mama."_

"_Yes, honey," Pepper kissed his forehead. "It's just you and me. Just you and me."_

"_I love you, Mama."_

"_I love you, too."_

_The next morning, Tony woke up to an empty home. The redhead and the toddler had quietly disappeared at some point in the middle of the night._

xxxXXXxxx

"So, what do you want to do, then, Tony?"

Tony rested his back against the edge of the kitchen counter, looked towards the ceiling, inhaled loudly through his mouth, and then exhaled through his nose.

"I'm not sure, Whitney. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I should do. But I _do_ know that being alone… that moving on, it just doesn't seem right."

"But, you're _not _alone, Tony," Whitney walked over to him, pressed her body against his, and then stood on her tiptoes to kiss him fully on his lips.

A handful of these arguments had already ended like this: with the two of them heavily making out on the couch. They had never gone farther than that; their clothes had always stayed on, and he had never taken her to a room. In fact, he never even talked about it afterward. He was yet to change his demeanor around her. As far as she knew, he had just followed his hormones and not his heart.

Yet, this time, this very moment, Whitney had other plans. She knew time was running out, a deadline was approaching, an expiration date was about to be fulfilled. She knew that she had to push him to try to take to it the next level with them, or all her efforts would be in vain.

Nevertheless, it became quickly discernible to her, by the rigidness of his shoulders, that he was not going to make it easier for her to do her job.

"No," he pulled away from her advances, pushed her off him, and then looked away.

"I'm sorry. I… I just can't."

"Why not?" Whitney forced him to stare at her by holding his face in her hands. "I could be her, you know? I could pretend to be her."

To prove her point, her theory, and to test the waters, Whitney casually walked over to her purse, picked it up, took out her mask, dumped the purse back on the coffee table, and put on the mask. Tony knew what the blonde was about to do – he knew about the origin of the Madame Masque technology, the fact that she now went by the name of Chameleon, a spy agent for S.H.I.E.L.D., and that they had once been at odds with each other after dating for a short while in high school.

This was why it had been easy for him to just release some tension and pent-up frustration with her and think nothing of it. Because all he truly remembered of her were the good times they had had when growing up. He knew she did not care that he had just been using her lips and her body to forget. Or at least, he had not cared that much about these actions of his until now.

"See?"

Before his eyes, the blonde instantly shapeshifted into looking just like the redhead he had sorely missed. She had even changed her clothes, opting for wearing a revealing nightie that she had seen stored away in the room the ginger had used when living here. The little number had been one of the inventor's favorites during his forgotten life, she had found this out from Jean Grey, and the reaction that it incited from him at seeing her like this was more than pleasing for her.

"I can try to be her," the blonde's voice was exactly the same as the redhead's.

She walked over to him, slid her hands on his chest until they reached his neck, circled him entirely, and then brushed her lips against his. Tony leaned his head to the side, lowered his face enough to briefly kiss her, but then pulled back with a sad smile.

"But, you're not."

He slid away from her, gave his back to her with the intention to run off and hide away in his room, but the blonde did not let him get far away.

She grabbed his left wrist, turned him in place, and then all but shoved him against the wall.

"What if I told you that I love you?" she searched his eyes and ran the tips of her fingers up the right side of his stomach, under his shirt. "What if I say: I love you, Tony. What would you do then? What would you say then?"

Tony thought about her question for a second. He looked into her hazel eyes while his mind replayed the words, but he refused to take the bait. He knew she was trying to entice him – to tempt him into doing what he was not willing to do with her anymore, and probably go even further than that.

Silence was their only companion for a minute. When Tony sighed in frustration and began pushing her away again, Whitney grabbed his face, pulled it closer to hers until they were inches apart, and then, in her best Pepper Potts impersonation, whispered to him.

"What, Tony? What would you say if I said it? If I said: I love you. I love you, Tony."

"I…" his mouth moved again but it did not make a sound. He then shook his head, sighed deeply, and finally locked eyes with her.

"I… I would say: I love you," he paused for a moment to smile at the way saying the words made him feel. "I love you. Pepper: I love you."

Hearing this and seeing his response, Whitney smiled, returned to her normal self, and then stabbed him with a needle over his heart.


	20. Epilogue

**A/N: **This is Teen Tyrant, Miss Starfire's Hubby, and I am posting this entry on her behalf. Miss Starfire has decided to step up her timetable and post this now for everyone, seeing how hard the last chapter was to take. She is visiting her parents right now and is unable to respond to your reviews via PM as she normally does before posting a new chapter. She sends her sincerest apologies to all of you for not following through on the routine for this occasion, but she believes that the outcome of this Epilogue will make it worthwhile for you guys. Enjoy!

* * *

**Epilogue**

This time, Rhodey found the ginger in the laundry room, desperately looking for something to occupy herself with. Her quick escape from the bedroom, just minutes ago, had been a clear indication that this was going to be a long night for the both of them, making him more than just glad that he had an entire week off from work. His only hope was that James did not wake up again tonight; as this would be the icing on the cake to the most difficult time he had experienced as of yet, at trying to lessen the redhead's anxiety and feelings of guilt.

He had begun to notice that, whenever an anniversary of the war came around, Pepper's vulnerability tended to spike. This particular anniversary, however, the one that marked six months since the war had ended, had been too close to another fond date to her: the inventor's birthday, which had taken place just two weeks before. He had pretended that he had not realized it, but Rhodey knew that Pepper had cried a river that night, all the while holding onto Tony's dog tags.

At this point in the game, and seeing how the ginger was getting worse and worse rather than just even a little bit better as more time went by, perhaps what Pepper truly needed from her friend was a massive wakeup call. Cruelty was not something James Rhodes was known for, but it appeared to him that continuing to allow the redhead to wallow in self-pity was actually crueler than helping her move on.

"Didn't Glenda _just _do the laundry yesterday?" Rhodey joined Pepper inside the laundry room to see Pepper refolding perfectly clean towels. "That's kinda the point of having help around here, no? For you to NOT do chores yourself?"

"Yes," Pepper refolded the same towel for the nth time, glad that Rhodey was not bringing up the topic she was trying to avoid – the reason she had ran out of the bedroom. "But I'm going crazy here with nothing to do. You'd think I'd be busier, with a very curious 2-year-old running around all the time."

Rhodey leaned the right side of his hip against the washing machine to closely watch Pepper make use of the top of the dryer to keep her hands and mind busy with the task at hand.

"Well," he shrugged, "He doesn't act like a regular toddler."

"Yeah, I know," Pepper smirked, extremely proud of her well-behaved son. "Tony is very clean."

Pepper, caught up in her own little world, completely missed Rhodey's rather obvious flinch.

"Tony?" he carefully and slowly repeated the genius' name when it became evident to him that Pepper was not yet aware of her slip-up.

"I mean: Howie," she immediately flinched herself at her use of the nickname the child's father had given him. "Jimmy," she shook her head. "I meant: Jimmy."

To avoid Rhodey seeing the tears her rolling blunder of just now had caused, Pepper decided to abandon her plan of refolding towels, practically jogged out of the laundry room, headed towards the kitchen, rummaged through the pantry for a second, and then took out a jar of pickles that her shaky and sweating hands prevented her from opening.

"Here, Pepper. Let me," Rhodey extended his hand to her, but the redhead simply shook her head.

"No, I got it."

It was not clear to Rhodey how she was going to open the jar, save perhaps by using a burst of Extremis strength. Her actual game plan, however, made his eyes widen in surprise. He had honestly forgotten that the ginger had allowed the inventor to add to her abilities repertoire what she was about to do to solve her little predicament.

Before his eyes, and while still holding the unopened glass jar in her left hand, Pepper extended her right arm, aimed it towards the hall and, in a matter of seconds, her arm became covered in Rescue's gauntlet. She then used the piece of her armor to pop the jar open with no issue, extended her right arm again to return the gauntlet to its secure location, and then began distractedly chewing on a small portion of the treat.

"Pickles?" Rhodey asked with honest curiosity, his head slightly tilted to the right, his arms resting on the kitchen counter to lean closer to her location.

"I'm out of Kit Kats," she practically pouted, and Rhodey instantly became unwilling and unable to do a reality-check for her tonight. It was obvious that the redhead's emotions were extremely volatile at the moment. Perhaps a dose of tough love from him, no matter how small, was not what she truly needed right now.

"I'll get you some tomorrow," Rhodey walked closer to his friend, hugged her from the side, and kissed her forehead. Pepper sniffled once, nodded, pressed her head against his chest, and then mumbled her thanks.

"Are you hungry?" she suddenly asked, her left palm landing on his abdomen, just now realizing that she had not made enough food for the three of them because she had not expected him to return from his mission tonight. It had been four hours since he had been home, and she now felt like the worst friend and hostess in the entire universe for overlooking the fact that Rhodey also needed looking after.

"Nah, not really."

"Are you sure?" she patted his stomach twice. "I can make you some pan–"

The sound of the doorbell ringing not only cut off her sentence, but it also set them both on high alert when it dawned on them that it was nearly midnight on a workday. They were not expecting anyone to drop by. It was too late for the visitor to even be around. And since no one in their close circle of family and friends ever visited them unannounced, the identity of the sudden guest made their vigilante personas come out.

The instances had been few and far between but, somehow, some individuals who were angry at the way the Doom War had turned out had tried harming the surviving members of the resistance, claiming they were doing the world some real justice. Most people who were in disagreement with how the counterattack had been handled were just crazy folks with nothing better to do; the kind of people that talked tough and loud, but that would immediately piss themselves at seeing little James lifting an anvil with no issue. However, there had been a handful of people who_ had_ attempted to hurt who they thought were the most helpless members of the _Saviors of the World_: Pepper and her son. Needless to say, those people had been in for the surprise of their sorry lives.

Nonetheless, the innate fear that something or someone would harm her son was always present in the devoted mother of the wealthiest (read: the most tempting to be kidnapped and held for ransom) toddler in the world.

"Rhodey?" even though her voice was firm, her eyes said it all: her paranoia was setting in. She gazed towards her son's room, swallowed hard, forgot all about the jar of pickles, and then raised her arm with the intention of calling for her suit once more.

"Whoa, Pepper! Slow down. Relax," Rhodey pressed his hands on her shoulders, his face serene despite his own concerns bubbling inside. He looked at her in the eye, smiled at her, and then finished his sentence. "It's probably Glenda, wanting to know why the hell you're undoing what she did for you."

It took her a second to process his words, but once she did, she allowed herself to exhale and smile.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she exhaled again, this time slowly, to calm her nerves. Her moment of relaxation only lasted a nanosecond, however, as a second ringing of the doorbell set her partly on edge once more.

"Jimmy's gonna wake up with that," she added.

"Let me get it," Rhodey said, already halfway to the front door.

The redhead pulled a bar stool, sat on it, and then narrowed her eyes when she saw Rhodey's shoulders suddenly squaring as soon as he had opened the door.

"What are you doing here, man?" Rhodey said between gritted teeth and began closing the door. "Get the _hell_ out of here!"

"_No, I… let me see her, please."_

"NO! I thought we made it clear that you can't be here. Ever!"

"Rhodey, listen: you _don't_ understand. I–"

The inventor's words died on his lips when his eyes landed on Pepper standing behind Rhodey's protective stance by the front door. For an instant, Tony forgot how to breathe and his mouth went dry.

After receiving that last attack from Doctor Doom during the battle, something had happened to his mind; something very similar to the nightmare/trance that Doom had put him under the very first time they had crossed paths. Memories, moments of his life, had begun replaying as if he were living them again, but leaving him unaware that he had already experienced them – as if they were taking place for the first time. And they had all revolved around Pepper.

Every moment since he had met her that she had been in danger because of him, every time her life had been threatened had played over again, only instead of being saved at the last moment, just as what really happened, he had been forced to witness himself fail his redhead on each and every occurance. He had been made to watch Pepper perish over a dozen times: sliced to pieces by the stone swords of the Dreadknights from the first temple; eaten whole by Fin Fang Foom; cut into vertical halves by Rhona Erwin's laserbeam during her deadly trivia games; slaughtered by the Makluan champion, the Berserker; murdered by the Ghost; devoured by the E-Zombies… and so on.

To have called the experience _unbearable_ would have been to describe it in the most optimistic terms imaginable. He had been left with no other option but to forget everything in his life that had any ties to Pepper Potts, rather than face the enormity of the numerous times he had been made to believe he had failed her. He dared anyone to not take the same action if put in his position. He just needed to convince everyone, convince _her_, that his memories had been restored.

He tried taking a step closer towards the entrance of the home, but Rhodey placed both of his hands against the hero's chest, pushed on him with all his strength, and was successful in forcing Tony to take several steps back.

"Tony, either you leave on your own right now, or we'll call the cops."

"I remember," Tony's eyes were glued to Pepper's, nothing Rhodey was threatening him with getting through his ears. "I remember everything."

"Not that shit again!" Rhodey snarled. "Dude, don't you even _care_ what your lying does to her? To your son? Don't you give a rat's ass that you're hurting them by coming here? By pretending that you remember them?"

"I do," Tony licked his lips and took a step closer towards Rhodey's unyielding form. "I remember. All of it. I really do. I-I…"

"Daddy?"

Pepper blinked once, her trance over seeing Tony again gone the second she heard James Stark getting involved in the painful situation. She immediately turned around in place, picked up her son from the floor to keep him from trying to reach his father, and then spoke over her shoulder to her friend.

"Please," the ginger began walking away from the door, her son in tow. "Just make him leave. Please."

"No! WAIT!" the blue-eyed boy closed the distance between him and Rhodey, and then began fiercely fighting against the man's blocking attempts. Seeing the genius was gaining ground with how desperate he was becoming, Rhodey began walking away from the front door's threshold, pushing Tony away with him from the door as he did so.

The billionaire, however, was not done speaking his mind.

"Pepper! PEPPER, please! I'm sorry I forgot! But you don't understand! Just, listen! I remember! I remember everything! PEPPER! Please! PLEASE, _LISTEN_! PLEASE!"

His words, despite how much raw emotion even Rhodey could hear in them, did nothing to stop Pepper from ignoring the genius and walking further into the home.

"Please…" Tony's attempt at reaching the door was once again halted by Rhodey. This time, however, Tony's pushback against Rhodey's chest was not as strong as before. In fact, Rhodey could see the hope being drained from Tony's eyes – a realization that made the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. momentarily be taken aback.

Tony was searching the depths of his restored mind for something, _anything_, that would unequivocally prove that he remembered all that he had forgotten. He thought momentarily to mention that the inside of her engagement ring was engraved with the word _Pepperony_, and that it was the result of an error. However, that information had been shared with others, and so it would have been possible for him to find that out without actually remembering it. It was not enough; he needed something more. He needed something that _no one_ but Pepper and himself knew about. But he could think of nothing.

"I forgot," Tony swallowed hard. "But… Please… forgive me… Pepper…"

Then it dawned on him: what he had to do. He noticed that Pepper was almost near the hallway inside the house, almost out of earshot, his one chance almost completely gone, so he did one of the many things he had never wanted to do: he thrust his knee up into Rhodey's stomach, pushed him to the side, and then ran towards the door.

"Dammit," Rhodey quickly recovered, pulled Tony by the back of his shirt, managed to slow him down, and then again stood between him and the entrance of the home.

"I..." Tony gulped, fixed his eyes on his wife's retreating form, and raised his voice so that there was no mistaking his words to her.

"I remember the smell of your skin. I remember everything. I remember all your moves," his voice began to sound more like a tune than a conversation, "I remember _you_. I remember the nights, you know I still do."

To Rhodey's surprise, Pepper gasped loudly and stopped her escape. She half-turned to stare at Tony over her right shoulder, and Rhodey eased his grip on him when he realized his estranged friend had started to sing.

Sensing that the need to push and shove his way to his target was now extinct, Tony focused on making sure his redhead understood what was truly taking place at the moment – that she understood that the fog in his mind was finally gone. And he did so, in the only way he knew the message would get through her head: he sang.

"So, if you're feeling lonely, don't. You're the only one I'll ever want. I only wanna make it good. So, if I love you a little more than I should… Please forgive me. I know not what I do. Please forgive me… I can't stop loving you."

When he saw Pepper turn away from him again, Tony felt his one chance was slipping away. The woman hesitantly put down her son back onto the floor to keep him from seeing her streaming tears so as to not upset him further. The little boy remained by his mother's leg; his fists full of her dress, his eyes intently watching his father's glistening ones.

"Don't…" Tony's voice was starting to break. He faltered for a moment, doubt growing in him that his efforts would work. But after six months of lying to himself, and of hurting the people he loved most in his life, the least he could do was to give it one last try.

"Don't deny me, this pain I'm going through. Please forgive me, if I need you like I do. Oh, believe me. Every word I say is true. Please forgive me, I can't stop loving you."

The silence that followed allowed Pepper to close her eyes and for the memory of their night together by the beach on her island to come crashing back to her. It was there, clear as day, the images of her and Tony dancing to that song, his voice in her ear singing the lyrics to her, just as he was doing now. She did not want to believe it, though. She did not want to fall for it again. It was too much to take in. It was not a disappointment she wanted to face yet again.

She opened her eyes once more, swallowed down the knot in her throat, and as she was about to tell Tony for the millionth time to just leave them alone, her son's gasp of surprise prevented her from making the biggest mistake of her life.

"Mama! Daddy's back!"

She did not even try to stop her son when he ran towards his father, as fast as his little legs could take him, only to be picked up by him and become a victim of Tony's kiss and hug attack. Instead, the redhead remained where she stood and began sobbing loudly; her hands covering her face, and her shoulders shaking in a painful manner.

"Mama, look!" the little boy could not hug his father any tighter than he already was. The duo began taking small steps towards the ginger – wary steps that Rhodey did not dare to stop.

"He's back, Mama! Daddy's back!"

She could feel him coming closer to her, but she refused to face him just yet. She knew what he would see. She knew that her current state would call his bluff. And even if he had somehow managed to fool her son, she refused to be played with as well.

"Pep," his voice was soft, as if he knew she would take flight with the wrong move or word. "I'm here. I'm back. I'm finally home."

_Home_, it took all of her self-control not to scoff at the mention of a place she had been unable to define or find for herself.

When she continued to give her back to him, Tony slowly rounded her position until he finally stood in front of her, and then gasped.

Knowing what was about to take place, Rhodey made a beeline to where Tony and Pepper were standing, snatched James from Tony's arms, and then quickly left the living room with the boy. The redhead, still unable to face Tony, began crying aloud when, in such close proximity to him, and now that she allowed herself to use her aura-scanning abilities, she finally saw what her son had seen, seconds ago: she finally realized that her husband had, in fact and despite all odds, truly returned to them. The old Tony Stark's aura was pouring out of him.

"You-you came back."

Tony nodded even though she was yet to stare at him, swallowed hard, took a step closer to her, and then spoke softly once more.

"I always do. As long as you're here, I'll come back."

Pepper held back a sob, quickly remembering that this statement of his was something he had told her once before: in the Makluan Temple, shortly after Ghost had nearly killed her, and she had been forced to let Tony go on a mission almost immediately after finding out who he really was – and before he had had the time to recover from a nearly fatal attack.

"But…" he breathed hard, his eyes glued to her midsection, "Am I late? Am I too late? Are you and Rhodey… did you…"

Hesitatingly, Pepper placed her palms over her bulging pregnant belly. She rubbed it lightly, inhaled deeply, shook her head, and then finally locked eyes with the man standing before her – her dear friend, her beloved husband, and the man she had begrudgingly come to believe that she would never see again.

"She…" she gulped. "She went with us… to Latveria."

If Tony's eyes had not been attached to his brain, they would have certainly popped out of their sockets just about now.

"Lat-Latveria? _She_?"

Tony placed his shaky hands on Pepper's belly, rubbed it lightly and fondly a few times, and then awed at the wonder of it.

"How… why… why did you still–"

"I didn't know," she confessed. "I mean, why would I even think I was? We… we made sure that… that…"

"Extremis," Tony blurted out, quickly putting together how this miracle had come to be. He alternated between staring at her confused hazel eyes, and at her pregnant bump as he continued to explain.

"I hesitated. That night. The night before you left Muir Island. I wished I could have more kids with you. I wished you'd get pregnant again."

"But your Extremis had been shut down by then."

"But it wasn't the first time I'd wished that. I… I should've double-checked that the medical procedure was still in place, knowing damn well how Extremis works, how it can turn back on if desired, how it can repair damage to my body, but… but…"

"But then," she placed her hands on his, "But then little Maria Stark wouldn't be on her way here right now."

He lifted his head and gaze from her bump to stare at his wife, words almost leaving him at her kind gesture and thoughtful surprise. He spared a glance towards the temporary home of his future daughter – his _daughter_ – and then smiled.

"Jill," he said, adding the name of Pepper's birth mother made sense to him. "Maria _Jill_ Stark."

"Tony…"

"It feels right," his hands moved from her belly to the sides of her face. "It just feels right."

"I'm sorry I left," the redhead was barely able to say between tears, her palms now resting on his chest. "I didn't want to scare you… if you saw… if you found out that I was–"

"I know, Pep. I can see that now," he pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, immediately enjoying the almost forfeited feel of his skin against hers. "And I'm sorry_ I_ forgot. That I _made_ myself forget. I thought it was for the best. I thought I was making it easier on you… but I was stupid. I was very stupid. I just… It would've never worked. I just… I just can't live without you, Pepper Potts."

"And neither can I live without you, Tony Stark."

"Then how about we don't?"

She chuckled. "It sounds like a plan."

The two heroes remained in each other's company for a long while, unwilling to move an inch or even open their eyes lest this all turned out to be a façade. It was not likely at all, Tony knew this for a fact, but the fear that he would suddenly wake up to find out that Pepper had truly moved on without him was just too overpowering to ignore. Not to mention: he did not want to tempt the gods of fate.

There were still questions that needed to be asked, answers that needed to be given, and apologies to make. Yet, at the moment, he just wanted to drown in her scent, merge with her skin, and breathe the same air as her. He just wanted to feel full of life, showered with love, and finally be free to be as happy as he could ever be.

With her.

With their son.

And soon with their daughter as well.

Not surprisingly, not at all shocking to anyone: it was the same things she wanted with him.

* * *

**A/N:** Is that a little better on your hearts as an ending? I certainly hope it was. But, before we say goodbye to this story, just one last thing…


	21. Conclusion

**Conclusion**

She was just finishing packing up the travel bags for her kids, all of whom would be spending two full weeks visiting their grandparents at SI in the city, while their parents celebrated their father's twenty-eighth birthday at their mother's private island, near the Bahamas. The Stark children – members of what was now known, thanks to the media, as the _Iron Family_ – just loved to spend time with their parents, especially on the island that was yet to be named. But they also loved hanging out at the tall building that had their last name plastered all over it. There was always something fun to do there, too, and their grandparents always let them do things their parents did not, such as: playing video games until late at night, watching scary movies after curfew, and even eating pizza whenever they felt like it.

Yes. The Stark kids were going to have a blast, but so were the two adults in the family. It had not been since their honeymoon that Tony and Pepper had taken a real vacation, just the two of them, and by golly they were going to make the best out of every second they had of the upcoming one. The island seemed like the perfect location to do so, and ever since they had built a nice and cozy second home there, long-term staying at the isolated piece of land had become a breeze. The only drawback to visiting the island, at least for Tony, was that there was a no-technology policy at place. Time at the island was for growing closer together as a family, and for spending time reconnecting with the simple life and nature. Phones, computers, and even suits of armor, had no place there.

Luckily for them, no one had even thought about messing with the family of Starks; or at least no one ever since Tony's memories had been returned to him by Whitney Stane, five years ago.

_Whitney's birthday's coming up_, Pepper thought with a smile as she zipped closed the last bag. _We should plan a girls' night out!_

Her smile grew wider at the possibilities this opportunity opened up for her. She was yet to go to Las Vegas, and celebrating Whitney's birthday in the city of sin seemed the perfect chance to finally do so. Glenda Barnes and Jean Grey had also never been to Vegas in their entire lives, and as long as the kids were taken care of, Pepper knew that her friends would just love to spend some time being free adults. Plus, they would form an even group: two redheads and two blondes, it would be perfect.

_Vegas, baby!_

Pepper mused for an instant, stretched her arms above her head, and then felt the sudden change in the air that made her eyes open wide.

She held back a gasp, looked over her shoulder and towards the deck located outside the master bedroom, and then rushed outside. She stopped by the rail, both her hands holding onto it with a little bit too much strength, and she looked left and right. It was faint, almost imperceptible, but she knew it was there. She just knew _he_ had to be there.

For almost a full minute, all she could see was the long line of trees of the greenbelt behind her house, for an instant reminding her why she loved this home so greatly. She had come here to avoid the city and start a new life, and she had stayed due to the friendly neighborhood, the natural park behind the land, and the fact that it made her feel as if she and her family could live a normal life while being here.

"Where are you?" she whispered, her eyes scanning the entire area once more. After a blink, her aura view turned on, and it was then that she was finally able to see the barely formed distortion by the right corner of the deck. She smiled as she took steps towards the cloud of unorganized aura, her right hand and arm stretched out towards it to transfer some of her own energy to him. Little by little, the disconnected mass began taking a human form, and when he finally looked more like an ethereal figure than a clump of barely visible smoke, Pepper felt her eyes fill with happy tears.

"Gene," she exhaled, tried to touch his palm, but her fingers simply went right through it.

"Gene," she repeated as she lowered her hand. "I… It's so great to see you again."

Gene Khan opened and closed his mouth a few times, but when he realized that no sound was coming out, he frowned. In response, Pepper took yet another step towards him, placed her palms before her so that they faced him, closed her eyes, and then transferred an even greater amount of her energy to him, using the very techniques he had once taught her.

"Pepper," Gene was shocked at hearing his own voice again. He had spent years floating in nothingness, having not been able to immediately pull himself together after Doctor Doom had separated his heart from his body, but being who he was – the one true great Mandarin – he was far from being down for the count. Although he had appeared to her a couple of times over the past few years, the stretches of time between were so great that it was still a bit startling for him to return to the material world, if only partially.

The redhead opened her eyes, took in a deep breath, and then blinked away the feeling of dizziness that overcame her as a result of supporting Gene's efforts to materialize before her.

"Too much," Gene said, hoping his short responses were enough for her to understand what he was trying to convey to her. He knew he did not have much time to be here before his atoms separated again – but he wanted to make the moment count.

"No," she breathed hard, held her weight against the rail to keep her from falling, and shook her head. "I'll be fine. I'll be OK. I've missed you, Gene. I've missed you so much."

"I… missed you," he struggled to say. "I… be back."

"I know," she dried her face from her tears. "I know it'll take you a while, but I'll be here when you do. And, if you need help. If you need energy, just stop by."

In a rare moment for the both of them, Gene Khan smiled.

"Gene!" the redhead and the Mandarin were both startled by the sound of Tony's voice. Gene furrowed his brow, wondering if the inventor could see his apparition. Yet, when a pair of little legs suddenly appeared on the deck, ran towards Pepper, and then hugged the front of her legs, Pepper's eyes glued to her friend's to gauge his response to what he was about to learn.

"Gene Edwin Stark! Get back here, you little troublemaker!"

The little boy giggled, curled onto himself while still standing between Pepper and the Mandarin alter ego's ghostly form, and then took a quick peek from behind his mother's legs.

"Seriously, Gene," Tony huffed as he caught up with the two-year-old who had learned, just a few days ago, that he could temporarily outrun his father. "Do you really think you can hide behind Mom?"

"Mommy!" the boy tried to seek his mother's support, but Pepper shook her head at him.

"No, no," she began, picked him up from the ground, and the turned around in place to face Tony. "You have to do as Daddy says."

"Thanks, Pep," Tony grabbed the child from her, placed him against his right hip, and before he got the chance to kiss his wife to wrap up showing his gratitude to her, another set of hyperactive legs ran past them.

"Daddy! Want to play with me?"

"Marie," Tony looked down at his daughter, whom he often referred to by his nickname for her, honoring her mother's middle name and his own mother's first name, at the same time. He narrowed his eyes at her, and then placed his left fist on his hip. "What do you mean _want to play with me?_ You were supposed to be watching your brother for me!"

"But, Daddy!" the almost-five-year old pouted. "That's boring! We want to play with you!"

"But it's story time," Tony reminded the little girl. "Don't you want to listen to me read you a story?"

The little girl gasped in anticipation, clasped her hands under her chin, and then nodded her head sharply.

"YES! STORY TIME! YAY!"

The child threw her hands up in the air before she tried running away towards the bedroom, but Tony quickly picked her up by her waist.

"Oh, no you don't!" the father adjusted the little girl's position on his left arm so that she was facing down, his grip tight around her midsection. "Now, where's your brother?"

"Right there," Maria pointed to Gene's current position on the other side of her father.

"Not this one! Howie!"

"Oh," Maria shrugged. "With Patty?"

"Patty's not even home right now," Tony replied, for an instant wondering why he was even having an argument with a child. "Anyway, let's get ready for–"

"Mom!"

"There he is," Maria said, pointing towards her older brother. "I found him."

"Oh, man," Tony looked back and forth between a running-towards-them James Stark and himself. "Pep, why do we have three kids if I only have two hands?!"

The redhead, who had been enjoying the entire show, laughed aloud.

"Just grow another hand, Daddy," Maria suggested. "Howie grows back stuff AAAALLLL the time."

"What stuff?" both parents stared at their older child; said youngster simply shrugged while his eyes shifted left and right.

"Uhm…"

"Marie: are you making bets again at school that your brother can grow back body parts?"

"No?" the girl pursed her lips. "Uhm… story time?"

Tony looked up to the sky and then sighed. Three children were definitely a handful. But he would not exchange any of it for the world.

"Well, everyone: it's gonna be story time in three minutes," Tony said. "If you miss it, that's your fault!"

As the genius began walking towards the door, Maria extended her arms and legs as straight as possible, almost resembling a plank as her father carried her under his arm. She made swooshing sounds, prompting the billionaire to suddenly stop his walk, and for Pepper to momentarily forget that Gene Khan was watching everything unfold.

"What are you doing, Maria?" Pepper asked, her brow furrowed.

"I'm flying, Mommy!" the talkative little girl said. "See? I don't need your jetpack no more!"

"Good," Pepper smirked. "That means you won't try to take it again."

Just like that, the little redheaded girl pouted, crossed her arms over her chest, and then whined.

"I want a jetpack," she mumbled.

"Come on, Howie: it's story time!" Tony said as he walked inside the master bedroom, his other two kids in tow, not even bothering to make sure his oldest son was following him at all – he knew Howie was the most obedient of the bunch, anyway. Nonetheless, when James remained very still, Pepper's eyes landed on the child. As she was about to tell him to listen to his father's orders, the look in his eyes told her that his attention was somewhere else entirely at the moment. And it took her a second to realize where it actually was.

"Uncle Gene," the boy whispered, causing Pepper to turn around to face Gene once again.

The Mandarin smirked and nodded once, not at all surprised that the eldest Stark child could see that he was there. James Howard Stark could see _everything_. He then watched as James' hand extended towards him to transfer some of his own power to him. To both his and Pepper's surprise, the amount of invisible energy James had just transferred to him was much larger than what Pepper had been able to do on her own. Even more shocking was the fact that the seven-year-old had not even broken a sweat after doing so.

"It's story time, Uncle Gene," James added, his words sounding very much like an invitation to join them, and then ran back inside the home, both sets of adult eyes following his every move.

Pepper stared at the door for a second, just to make sure that no one else was coming back out. When she then returned her eyes and attention to where Gene had been standing, she did so only to find out that he was gone.

"Gene," she gulped. Her eyes scanned her surroundings again, but there was no sign of him at all. She tried to randomly augment the aura around her, used the maximum amount of her aura manipulating abilities, hoping he would be able to come back, but after nearly half a minute of no luck, the redhead gave up on her task.

_"Pepper!"_ she heard her husband call from inside the bedroom. _"It's story time, for crying out loud!"_

"Coming!" she replied, gave the deck one final good look, and then sighed. She had not known _when_ Gene would come back – although she had known that he _would_ eventually, for good, since he was immortal due to the rings – and she now berated herself for wasting the opportunity by not thanking him for his sacrifice. Everyone had helped greatly during the war, but it had been Gene's actions that had finally made Victor von Doom a thing of the past for the entire world.

_Next time_, the ginger told herself. _Until next time._

_"Pep!"_

_ "Mom!"_

_ "Mommy!"_

_ "Mama!"_

Pepper grinned at hearing her family all call for her in their own way. She exhaled sharply, turned on her heels, and then ran back to the door to hers and Tony's room.

The scene before her made her grin turn into a full smile. Her entire family was on the bed, their backs against the headboard. Tony was in the middle of it; James sat to Tony's left, snuggled under his arm, ready to_ flip_ the pages of the digital book with his fingers when his father told him to do so; Maria sat to Tony's right, also under his arm; and on her lap, baby Gene waited patiently, suckling on his thumb, his sister's arms around him, both waiting for the story to start.

They were an endearing sight to see; the little girl cuddling with baby Gene. Maria Jill Stark simply adored her little brother, and had decreed herself his personal protector. She also greatly looked up to and idolized her big brother, James. Nobody really understood why, but like Pepper, Maria just seemed to understand and get along with boys more than she did with girls. She was not shaping up to be a tomboy; she was very much what one would think of as a girly-girl. Be that as it may, the child genuinely seemed to enjoy and prefer the company of her male siblings, and her parents truly felt sorry for any girls who ever tried to hurt or take advantage of her brothers someday. They were going to face the wrath of a very protective and vengeful sister if they tried.

The moment Pepper appeared by the door, Tony lifted his gaze. He winked at his wife, and they stared at each other's eyes for a long moment – a moment in which Pepper once again thanked Maya Hansen and Whitney Stane for doing what they had done. If it had not been for Maya's anti-reboot serum that she had made for him in case the restart dose Pepper had put him through failed; if it had not been for Whitney waiting patiently for Tony to truly want his old life back, waiting for Extremis to be ready for receiving said serum – one which the blonde had been given the responsibility of administering since before the counterattack had begun – Pepper Potts would not be witnessing the tender moment before her.

If it had not been for her two former romantic rivals working together to help them, she would not be readying herself to snuggle near her kids and her husband, to listen to the inventor's latest bedtime story.

"Come on, Pep. We're about to start."

Pepper wasted no time to jump on the bed, opting to sit by Maria and Gene's side, and then cleared her throat to let them know she was ready for the show.

"Alright!" Tony said with enthusiasm. "Tonight we have a brand-new story to tell!"

"New?" Maria clapped excitedly. "What's it called, Daddy?"

"It's called," Tony waited for James to slide his index finger on the screen of the tablet to deactivate the screensaver, "_The Last Chronicle of the Mandarin_."

"Last?" James furrowed his brow, recalling from the previous years when Tony had read bedtime stories for him, that the Mandarin was the evil ruler who would not let the smart, handsome hero be with the beautiful redheaded princess. They had not heard much of the Mandarin in stories lately; the oldest Stark child was surprised to hear of him again.

"Is the villain finally stopped, Dad?"

"No," Tony shook his head, "He's not the villain anymore, Howie. He's the hero."

Gene Khan, who did not have enough energy to speak out loud, and only had enough left to appear ever so lightly by the door to the Stark bedroom, silently gasped.

Pepper sensed his quick appearance, prompting her head to snap up, and she then mouthed to him the words she had wanted to say to him, all this time.

_Thank you, Gene._

Gene smiled. He then closed his eyes, and slowly disappeared from view, his ears hearing only the first few lines of the tale.

"Once upon a time," Tony began, "Long, long ago, there was a very smart, but _very_ bad man called: Dr. Boom…"

xxxXXXxxx

Sunrises were always beautiful at the island, especially when you had a front-row view from your very own balcony, atop the maximum altitude on the entire mass of land, even if you had to stand up throughout it all. The breeze was warm and soft. The air was clean and refreshing. And Tony's arms suddenly around her waist and his chin resting on her left shoulder was just what she had needed to truly enjoy this moment of her life.

She placed her arms on his, pressed her back against his chest, and he snuggled his face against her neck.

"Good morning, Pep," he kissed her exposed shoulder. "Sleep well?"

"Uh huh," she closed her eyes to fully enjoy his lips sliding across her skin. "You?"

"Yup," he ceased kissing her neck and shoulder, and then opted to simply rest the side of his face against hers. "Well, not until someone stopped snoring."

"What?" her head snapped back. "I don't snore!"

"Sure you don't, babe. It was probably just in my head."

"Tony!" she pulled away from him, faced him completely, and then narrowed her eyes at him. "I. Don't. Snore."

"I have video evidence to the contrary, Pepper."

"Gah!" her hands flew to her mouth, but when she remembered that there was not much holding the now slowly falling bedsheets around her body, she quickly grabbed onto the fabric with a huff. "Quit it!"

"Quit, what?" Tony chuckled, a simple towel wrapped around his waist.

"You know what! That smug smile of yours!"

"What smug smile?" he shrugged, pretending rather poorly that he had no idea what she was referring to.

"You know damn well which one!"

"You mean this one," he pointed to his face, "Or this one," he added while somehow making his smirk even that much more arrogant than before.

"Dammit, Tony! You're such a jerk!"

"Am I?" he closed the distance between them, his hands now on her hips.

"Yes! You're, like, King of the Jerks. And, if there was a city of jerks, you'd be the Mayor of it!"

"Wow! That's a whole lot of jerk there."

"Yes! Jerk!"

Tony chuckled, much to her dismay and reddening cheeks. He then tilted his head to the right, kissed her lips slowly and tenderly, and then pulled back. His eyes took in all of her face, freckles and all, and after tilting his head to the other side, he huskily whispered to her.

"Your jerk, right?"

Just like that, her anger melted away.

She pulled herself closer to him, also taking in every inch of his facial features. So far, his birthday celebration had been rather enjoyable for the both of them, but she knew there was much more to come.

She returned the favor by fervently kissing him, running her hands over his chest, and then pulled away to make sure she gave the proper reply to his inquiry.

"Yes," she nodded, ran her hands down his face, and then gave him a broad smile. "My jerk."

**THE END**

* * *

Well, Faithful Readers, after nearly a full three years, we have finally reached the end of this epic. It's been a lot of fun, and I really think it has allowed me to grow and improve as a writer. While I do have some ideas to revisit this continuity a few times in the future with some smaller, just-for-fun stories, I'm going to give this one a good rest for a while, and turn my attention to some of my other pending stories.

I want to take a moment to give out some much-deserved gratitude. Firstly, to my always helpful Hubby, Teen Tyrant. Not only has he helped me edit all of these stories, and even supplied some scenes in them himself, but he is also the one I bounce all my crazy ideas off of. When asked what he thinks of a potential scene, he would say something along the lines of: "That's pretty good," or "Yeah, that's perfect," or "Oh, fuck no, don't write THAT!" Naturally, those are the ones I ended up writing, and you guys seemed to love them. Thanks for the help, Sweetie!

Most of all, I want to thank each of you, my Faithful Readers, every last one of you, whether you have followed along with this tale since the first posting of _The Last Month, _or came in while the story was still in progress and caught up to all this craziness. It is your praise and demands for more that have stoked the fires of my inspiration. None of this would have meant anything without you.

And there's still a lot more heading your way, so stick around everybody, 'cause I'm just getting started!


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